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BEN     JONSON 

AND 

SHAKESPEARE 


By  SIR  GEORGE  GREENWOOD 

Author  of 

"  Shakespeare's  Law," 

"  The  Shakespeare  Problem  Restated," 

"  Is  there  a  Shakespeare  Problem  ?  " 

*'  The  Vindicators  of  Shakespeare," 

"  Shakspere's  Handwriting," 

etc. 


EDWIN  VALENTINE  MITCHELL 

27,   LEWIS   STREET,    HARTFORD,    CONNECTICUT 


FIRST 
EDITION 
COPYRIGHT 
IN  GREAT 
BRITAIN 
I         9         2         I 


Printed  by  Ben  Johnson  &  Co.,  Ltd.,  York  and  London. 


CONTENTS. 


Page. 
Foreword  ........    vii-ix 

Jonson's  testimony  not  "  irrefragable  "  .  .  .  11 

Jonson's  closely  associated  with  the  publication  of  the 

Shakespeare  Folio  of  1623 12 

Jonson  wrote  the  Folio  Prefaces   .  .  .  .  .13-17 

Dr.  Felix  Schelling  on  the  undoubted  Jonsonian  author- 
ship ........  15 

Jonson's  responsibility  for  a  siiggestio  falsi       .          .          .  18 

Plays  not  by  "  Shakespeare  "  published  under  his  name.  18-19 

Henry  VIII .  not  by  "  Shakespeare  "      .          .          .          .  19 

Heminge  and  Condell  and  the  "  unblotted  manuscripts  "  20 

Mr.  Dugdale  Sykes  on  the  "  standard  of  honesty  "  among 

publishers  in  Shakespearean  times  ...  20 

The  "  True  Originalls  "  of  Shakespeare's  plays    ,  \ln,  21-23 

"  Shakespeare  "  a  pen  name  .....  23 

Why  "  Shake-speare  "  ? 23n 

The  work  of  many  pens,  and  of  one  transcendent  genius 

in  the  Folio  .......  25 

Dangers  for  playwrights  in  the  time  of  the  Tudors  .  25 

Jonson's  eulogy  prefixed  to  the  Folio     ....  26 

Was  Jonson  "  a  liar  ?  "         .  .  .  .  .  .27 

Jonson's  Discoveries    .......   28-31 

The  "  unblotted  manuscripts  "  were  fair  copies       .  .  30 

Jonson  and  "  Poet  Ape  "     .  .  .  .  .  .31 

Jonson's  Poetaster       .......  32 

Players  were  "  i'  the  statute  "        .  .  .  .  .    32-33 


^70157 


vi  CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Everyman  out  of  his  Humour  and  Shakspere's  Arms.  .   33-34 

Were  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  Venus  and  Adonis  written 

by  the  "  Stratford  rustic  ?  "  (Garnett  &  Gosse)         .  35 

Professor  Abel  Lefranc  on  the  "  Stratfordian  "  belief       .  35 

"  Shakespeare  "  a  mask-name       .....  35 

*•  Small  Latin  and  less  Greek  " 35w 

Jonson's  lines  under  the  Droeshout  engraving          .          .  36-37 

The  Petition  of  the  Burbages  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  in 

1635.     Shakespeare  a  "  deserving  man  "  !        .  .   38-41 

Two  Notes  in  Manningham's  Journal   .  .  .  .  41  w 

NOTE  A— Jonson  and  Bacon 42-44 

Opinion  of  Henry  James     ....  44 

NOTE  B — Was  Shakspere  an  actor-manager  ? 
Had  he  a  residence  in  London  ? 
Did  he  ever  act  in  a  '*  Shakespearean  "  play  ? 
What  parts  did  he  play  }      .  .  .  .   45-55 

NOTE  C — Jonson's  Discoveries    .....  56 


FOREWORD 

Sir  Sidney  Lee  some  twenty  years  ago  committed 
himself  to  the  following  statement  concerning  William 
Shakspere  of  Stratford-upon-Avon  : — *'  Patient  investi- 
gation which  has  been  in  progress  for  more  than  two 
hundred  years  has  brought  together  a  mass  of  bio- 
graphical detail  which  far  exceeds  that  accessible  in  the 
case  of  any  poet  contemporary  with  Shakespeare." 
(Times,  Jan.  8,  1902). 

Now  if  this  statement  is  intended  to  mean  (and  I  can 
assign  no  other  reasonable  significance  to  the  words) 
that  we  know  more  about  the  life  of  Shakspere  of  Strat- 
ford than  we  know  about  that  of  any  poet  contemporary 
with  him,  there  is  an  audacity  about  it  which  is  really 
quite  subUme  ;  indeed  the  proverbial  *'  one  step  " 
between  the  sublime  and  the  ridiculous  seems  here  to 
have  entirely  disappeared. 

It  is  quite  true  that  around  the  name  of  **  Shake- 
speare "  there  has  grown  up  a  mountainous  mass  of 
literature — of  criticism,  of  illustration,  of  theory,  of 
conjecture,  of  dogmatism,  of  assertion,  of  allusions, 
real  or  supposed,  etc.,  etc. — which  is  perfectly  appalling 
in  its  extent  and  variety  ;  but  notwithstanding  that  the 
whole  world  has  been  ransacked  for  evidence,  and 
notwithstanding  that  lives  have  been  devoted  to  the 
subject  and  an  incredible  amount  of  labour  bestowed 
upon  it,  we  find  it  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  when  the  late 
J.  R.  Green  published  his  History  of  the  English  People y 
that  *'  of  hardly  any  great  poet  do  we  know  so  Httle." 

In  marked  contrast  with  Sir  Sidney's  flamboyant 
assertion  are  the  more  sober,  and  quite  veracious,  words 
with  which  Mr.  Gregory  Smith  commences  his  recently 
pubUshed  study  of  Ben  Jonson  in  the  **  EngHshmen  of 
Letters  "  series  (1919)  : — "  We  know  more  of  Jonson 
than  of  any  of  the  greater  writers  of  his  age.  There 
are  no  mysteries,  or  at  least  great  mysteries,  in  his 
literary  career,  and  the  biographer  is  not  driven,  with 


viii  .    FOREWORD 

the  Shakespearians,  to  conjectural  reconstruction  from 
the  shards  of  record  and  anecdote.  Even  his  personahty 
stands  forth  fresh  and  convincing  beside  the  blurred 
portrait  of  Marlowe,  or  Shakespeare,  or  Fletcher.  For 
this  fuller  knowledge  we  are  indebted  to  Jonson  himself." 

Here  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  the  words  of  a 
correspondent  who  has  given  much  thought  and  study 
to  this  question.  *'  It  is  the  very  fulness  and  precision 
of  the  information  we  possess  respecting  Jonson's 
literary  and  dramatic  relationships,  particularly  during 
the  eventful  years  of  the  *  Shakespeare  '  period,  which 
prove  that  Jonson  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with 
Shakspere.  His  aggressive  self-assertion  not  only 
kept  him  in  the  lime-light,  but  dragged  into  public 
view  every  one  that  had  anything  to  do  with  him,  either 
as  friend  or  foe.  We  have  his  correspondence,  his 
conversation,  his  personal  dealings  with — even  compli- 
mentary poems  addressed  to — everybody  but  Shakspere." 
There  is,  indeed,  nothing  whatever  to  show  that  there 
was  any  real  intimacy,  nay,  any  friendship,  or  any 
"  love  lost,"  between  Jonson  and  William  Shakspere 
of  Stratford.  The  alleged  "  merry  meeting  "  between 
these  two  and  Drayton,  at  which  Shakspere  is  reported 
to  have  drunk  so  hard  that  he  died  from  the  effects  of 
it,  is  so  obviously  a  fable  that  it  demands  no  considera- 
tion, and  as  to  Jonson's  remarks  in  his  Discoveries,  made 
many  years  after  Shakspere's  death,  and  not  published 
till  some  six  years  after  Jonson's  own  death,  it  appears 
to  me  that  these  later  utterances  must  be  taken  with 
many  *'  grains  of  salt,"  for  they  bear  no  relation  to, 
and  have  no  correspondence  with,  the  known  facts 
of  Jonson's  life.  As  I  have  endeavoured  to  show  in 
the  following  pages  Jonson  was  closely  associated  with 
the  preparation  and  publication  of  the  Folio  of  1623 
(as  a  ''  send-off "  for  which  he  wrote  his  famous 
panegyric),  and  was  fully  cognisant  of  the  true  authorship 
of  the  plays  therein  given  to  the  world  ;  and  it  was, 
as  I  am  convinced,  this  association  and  this  knowledge 
which  coloured  the  cryptic  utterances  of  his  old  age. 

As  to  the  idea  that  Jonson  was  too  uncompromisingly 


FOREWORD  ix 

honest  to  lend  himself  to  any  Hterary  deception  even 
in  those  days  when  literary  deceptions  were  so  extremely 
common  as  to  be  generally  regarded  as  but  venial 
offences,  if  not  altogether  justifiable,  it  may,  perhaps, 
be  of  use  to  quote  the  judgment  of  a  deceased  wTiter 
and  critic  of  no  small  distinction.  **  James,"  says 
Hepworth  Dixon,  *'  had  made  him  [Jonson]  laureate, 
and  he  had  to  earn  his  hundred  marks.  If  flattery 
were  wanted  he  was  rich  in  phrases  ;  if  abuse  were 
wanted  he  was  no  less  rank  in  venom.  Both  were 
needed  by  the  King  :  flattery  the  most  fulsome,  abuse 
the  most  scurrilous  that  poet  had  ever  penned.  He  was 
extremely  fond  of  drink  ;  he  was  inordinately  foul  of 
tongue  ;    in  sycophancy  he  knew  no  depth  ;    no  sense 

of    religion    guided    his    erratic    steps Born    a 

Calvinist  he  became  a  Catholic.  After  the  Powder 
Plot  he  joined  the  court  religion  and  helped  in  hunting 
down  his  colleagues."     {Royal  Windsor,  vol.  iv.,  p.  92). 

This,  it  may  be  said,  is  an  unduly  harsh  judgment. 
Possibly  it  may  be  so,  but  it  is  at  any  rate  much  nearer 
to  the  truth  than  the  assertions  of  some  critics  and 
controversialists,  who,  in  the  supposed  interest  of  the 
traditional  "  Stratfordian  "  faith,  apparently  think  it 
necessary  to  put  "  honest  Ben,"  as  they  love  to  style 
him,  in  the  same  category  with  George  Washington — 
**  the  man  who  never  told  a  lie  !  " 

But  what  a  thousand  pities  it  is  that — so  far  as  we 
know,  and  as  we  are  fully  justified  in  concluding — ■ 
William  Shakespere  never  addressed  a  letter  or  a  poem 
to  Jonson  ;  never  received  a  letter  or  a  poem  from 
Jonson  ;  never  received  one  of  those  gift-books  which 
Jonson  was  so  fond  of  presenting  to  his  friends  with 
his  well-known  and  excellently-written  autograph  on 
the  front  page  !  What  a  thousand  pities  that  Ben's 
**  love,"  almost  amounting  to  *'  idolatry  " — and  what 
is  **  idolatry  "  but  the  worship  of  a  graven  image  ? — 
never  appears  to  have  found  utterance  or  expression 
till  many  years  after  William  Shakspere's  death  ! 

G.  G. 


JONSON    AND    SHAKESPEARE 

THE  sheet  anchor  of  the  traditional  belief 
with  regard  to  the  authorship  of  the  plays 
and  poems  of  Shakespeare  is  undoubtedly 
Ben  Jonson.  It  is  to  the  Jonsonian  utterances 
that  the  apostles  of  the  Stratfordian  faith  always 
make  their  appeal.  That  faith  we  are  told  is  based 
on  the  "  irrefragable  rock  "  of  Ben  Jonson's 
testimony.^ 

Well,  it  was  not  so  very  long  ago  that  we  used 
to  be  told  that  the  truth  of  a  universal  deluge  and 
the  preservation  of  mankind  and  animals  of  every 
kind  and  species,  in  Noah's  Ark,  was  established 
on  the  *'  impregnable  rock  "  of  Holy  Scripture, 
and  yet  to-day  we  find  even  high  Church  digni- 
taries— with  whom  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson  would 
certainly  be  in  entire  agreement  here — disavowing 
any  belief  in  this  interesting  mythological  tradition. 
Is  it  not,  then,  possible  that  the  Jonsonian  testi- 
mony may  prove  no  more  "  irrefragable  "  or 
"  impregnable  "  than  that  of  those  old  chronicles, 
which  age-long  tradition  has  ascribed  to  the 
authorship  of  '*  Moses  "  } 

As  a  distinguished  writer,  well-known  both  in 
the  political  and  the  literary  world,  has  written  to 
me,  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  orthodox 
"  Shakespearian  "  belief  seem  to  be  insuperable. 
Are  the  Jonsonian  utterances  of  such  weight  as 
to  outweigh  them  all  }  I  reply,  put  Jonson  in 
one  scale  and  all  the  difficulties  and  improbabilities 

^  "  The  testimony  of  Jonson  is  monumental  and  irrefragable." — 
The  Rt.  Hon.  J.  M.  Robertson  in  The  Observer,  of  March  2nd, 
1919. 


,12,,        JONSON  AMD  SHAKESPEARE 

— if  not  impossibilities — of  the  "  Stratfordian  " 
hypothesis  in  the  other,  and  old  Ben  will  kick 
the   beam. 

Now  let  us  briefly  consider  this  Jonsonian 
testimony.  There  are  two  utterances  to  which 
the  orthodox  appeal  as  conclusive  evidence,  viz.  : 
the  lines  bearing  Jonson's  signature  prefixed  to 
the  Folio  of  1623,  and  the  much-quoted  passage 
De  Shakespeare  nostrati  in  his  Timber  or  Discoveries. 
Let  us  first  consider  the  evidence  of  the  Folio. 

Seven  years  after  the  death  of  William  Shakspere 
of  Stratford-upon-Avon,  it  entered  into  the  mind 
of  somebody  to  publish  a  collected  edition  of 
*'  Mr.  WilHam  Shakespeare's  "  plays.  Who  that 
somebody  was  we  do  not  know,  but  we  do  know 
that  Ben  Jonson  was  very  closely  associated  with 
the  undertaking.  It  cannot  reasonably  be  doubted 
that  Jonson  was  the  *'  literary  m.an  "  v/ho,  as  the 
Cambridge  Editors  long  ago  suggested,  was  called 
in  to  write  the  Preface  *'  To  the  Great  Variety  of 
Readers  "  signed  by  the  players  Heminge  and 
Condell.^  That  he  did,  indeed,  write  this  Preface 
was,  in  my  opinion,  proved  by  that  very  able 
critic,  George  Steevens,  in  a  masterly  critical 
analysis.  *'  After  the  publication  of  my  first 
edition  of  Shakespeare's  works,"  writes  Steevens, 
"  a  notion  struck  me  that  the  preface  prefixed  by 
the  players  in  1623  to  their  edition  of  his  plays 
had  much  of  the  manner  of  Ben  Jonson,  and  an 
attentive  comparison  of  that  preface  with  various 
passages  in  Jonson's  writings  having  abundantly 
supported  and  confirmed  my  conjecture,  /  do  not 
hesitate'^  now  to  assert  that  the  greatest  part  of  it 

1  See  Preface  to  the  Cambridge  Shakespeare  (1863),  p.  24. 

2  Original  italics.  Steevens's  first  edition  of  Shakespeare  was 
published  in  1773. 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  13 

was  written  by  him.  Heminge  and  Condell 
being  themselves  wholly  unused  to  composition, 
and  having  been  furnished  by  Jonson,  whose 
reputation  was  then  at  its  height,  with  a  copy  of 
verses  in  praise  of  Shakespeare,  and  with  others 
on  the  engraved  portrait  prefixed  to  his  plays, 
w^ould  naturally  apply  to  him  for  assistance  in  that 
part  of  the  work  in  which  they  wxre,  for  the  first 
time,  to  address  the  publick  in  their  own  names.  .  .  . 
I  think  I  can  show  the  w-hole  of  the  first  member 
of  this  address,  comprising  eighteen  lines  out  of 
forty,  to  be  entirely  his  ;  .  .  .  a  minute  comparison 
of  the  first  half  of  this  preface  with  various  passages 
in  Jonson's  works  will,  I  conceive,  establish  my 
hypothesis    beyond    a    doubt. "^ 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Steevens  here  speaks 
without  doubt  as  to  part  of  this  Preface  only  as 
having  been  written  by  Jonson,  but  we  need  have 
no  hesitation  in  saying  that  if  Jonson  is  proved  to 
have  written  part  he  undoubtedly  wrote  the  whole 
of  the  Preface.  It  seems  to  me  absurd  to  suppose 
that,  having  been  called  in  to  write  in  the  names 
of  the  players,  he  would  have  contented  himself 
with  composing  a  fragment  of  a  preface,  and  have 
left  the  rest  to  others.  Least  of  all  would  he  have 
left  what  he  had  writtep  to  be  completed  by  those 

deserving  men,"  Heminge  and  Condell,  who 
were,  as  Steevens  justly  remarks,  "  wholly  unused 
to  composition."  That  was  not  the  way  in  which 
old  Ben,  of  all  men,  was  in  the  habit  of  doing  things. 
I  entertain  no  doubt,  therefore,  that  the  Preface 

1  See  Boszveirs  Malone  (The  "  Third  Variorum,  '  1821),  Vol.  2, 
p.  663,  where  Steevens's  masterly  proof  will  be  found.  See  also 
my  Shakespeare  Problem  Restated  at  p.  264  et  seq.  :  where,  how- 
ever, by  an  unfortunate  slip,  the  demonstration  is  ascribed  to 
Malone  instead  of  to  Steevens.  See  further  Is  there  a  Shakespeare 
Problem  ?  p.  382  et  seq. 


14  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

**  To  the  Great  Variety  of  Readers  "  was  wholly 
written  by  Ben  Jonson. 

But,  further,  there  can  be,  in  my  judgment,  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  Jonson  wrote  the  "  Epistle 
Dedicatory  "  also.  He  was,  doubtless  (I  use  that 
often  misused  adverb  with  confidence  here), 
employed  as  the  **  literary  man  "  to  write  the  pre- 
faces to  the  Folio,  as,  also,  the  poetical  eulogium 
of  the  author  prefixed  to  it.  The  **  Epistle 
Dedicatory  "  contains  many  classical  allusions, 
quite  in  the  Jonsonian  style.  Some  of  it  is  taken 
direct  from  the  dedication  of  Pliny*s  Natural 
History,  and  there  is  an  obvious  allusion  to  a  well- 
known  ode  of  Horace.^  Mr.  James  Boaden, 
amongst  others,  had  no  doubts  about  the  matter. 
*'  Ben,"  he  says,  ''  it  is  now  ascertained,  wrote 
for  the  Player-Editors  the  Dedication  and  Preface 
to  his  [Shakespeare's]  works. "^ 

The  Cambridge  Editors — and  the  names  of 
Messrs.  W.  G.  Clark,  John  Glover,  and  Aldis 
Wright  must  always  command  respect — are  at 
least  so  far  in  agreement  that  they  tell  us  *'  the 
Preface  (to  the  Great  Variety  of  Readers)  may  have 
been  written  by  some  literary  man  in  the  employment 
of  the  publishers,    and   merely   sigtied   by    the    two 

1  Odes,  Bk.  III.,  23,  The  reader  will  note  the  expression, 
"  absolute  in  their  numbers,"  in  the  Preface  "  To  the  Great 
Variety  of  Readers  " — a  classical  expression  to  be  found  in  Pliny 
and  Val.  Maximus — and  other  similar  expressions  taken  from 
the  classics  quite  in  the  Jonsonian  manner. 

'  On  the  Portraits  of  Shakespeare,  1824,  p.  13.  Mr.  Furness, 
also,  commenting  upon  a  remark  of  Pope's,  writes  that  he  "  could 
hardly  have  been  so  unfamiliar  with  the  Folios  as  not  to  have 
known  that  Jonson  was  the  author  of  both  the  Address  to  the 
Reader  and  some  commendatory  lines  in  the  First  Folio." 
(Julius  Ccesar,  by  Furness,  Act  HI.,  Sc.  1,  p.  137  note).  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang  writes,  "  Like  Mr.  Greenwood,  I  think  that  Ben 
was  the  penman."  (Shakespeare,  Bacon  and  The  Great  Unknozvn, 
p.  207  note). 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  15 

players.^'  Nor  would  this  be  at  all  an  unusual 
thing  to  do.  For  example,  when  the  folio  edition 
of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Plays  was  brought 
out  in  1647,  by  the  publisher  Moseley,  there  was 
a  dedicatory  epistle,  similar  to  that  of  the  Shake- 
speare Folio,  prefixed  to  it,  and  addressed  to  the 
survivor  of  the  **  Incomparable  Paire,"  viz.  : 
Philip,  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  who 
was  then  Lord  Chamberlain.  This  was  signed 
by  ten  of  the  players  of  the  King's  Company,  but 
nobody,  I  imagine,  supposes  that  they  wTote  it, 
or  any  one  of  them.  "  The  actors  who  aided  the 
scheme,"  says  Sir  Sidney  Lee,  in  his  Introduction 
to  the  Facsimile  Edition  of  the  Shakespeare  Folio, 
**  played  a  very  subordinate  part  in  its  execution. 
They  did  nothing  beyond  seconding  Moseley's 
efforts  in  securing  the  '  copy  '  and  signing  their 
names — to  the  number  of  ten — to  the  dedicatory 
epistle."  From  this  I  conclude  that,  in  Sir  Sidney 
Lee's  opinion,  the  actors  in  this  case,  at  any  rate, 
did  not  write  the  epistle  to  which  they  so  signed 
their  names. 

Now  in  the  case  of  the  Shakespeare  Folio  we 
know  that  Jonson  wrote  the  lines  facing  the 
Droeshout  engraving,  subscribed  with  his  initials, 
and  the  eulogistic  verses  signed  with  his  name  in 
full.  Is  it  not  reasonable,  then,  to  conclude  that 
he  was  the  *'  Hterary  man  in  the  employment  of 
the  publishers,"  as  suggested  by  the  Cambridge 
Editors,  and  that  he  wrote  the  prefaces,  which 
are  entirely  in  his  style  ?  May  we  not  go  further 
and  say  that  it  is  certain  that  he  was  the  author  of 
these  prefaces  ?  Let  us  see  what  the  Professor 
of  English  Literature  in  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania has  to  say  on  the  subject.  Dr.  Felix 
Schelling,  who  holds  this  position,  is  recognised 


16  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

as  a  high  Shakespearean  authority.  He  is,  more- 
over, a  man  to  whom  any  doubt  as  to  the  **  Strat- 
fordian  "  authorship  of  the  plays  is  anathema. 
And  this  is  what  he  tells  us  with  regard  to  the 
preparation  for  publication  of  the  Folio  of  1623  : — 
"  Neither  Heminge  nor  Condell  was  a  writer,  and 
such  a  book  ought  to  be  properly  introduced.  In 
such  a  juncture  there  could  be  no  choice.  The 
best  book  of  the  hour  demanded  sponsorship  by 
the  greatest  contemporary  man  of  letters.  Ben 
Jonson  was  the  King's  poet,  the  Laureate,  the 
literary  dictator  of  the  age  ;  and  Jonson  rose 
nobly  to  the  task,  penning  not  only  the  epigram 
*  To  the  Reader,'  and  his  noble  personal  eulogium, 
but  both  the  prose  addresses  of  dedication.  Of 
this  matter  there  can  be  no  question  whatever^  and  if 
anyone  is  troubled  by  the  signatures  of  Heminge 
and  Condell  appended  to  two  addresses  which 
neither  of  them  actually  wrote,  let  him  examine 
into  his  own  conduct  in  the  matter  of  circulars, 
resolutions,  and  other  papers  which  he  has  had 
written  by  skilled  competence  for  the  appendage 
of    his    signature."^ 

^  See  report  of  an  address  delivered  at  Houston  Hall,  Penn- 
sylvania, by  Dr.  Felix  Schelling,  in  The  Pennsylvania  Gazette^ 
Jan.  16,  1920.  My  italics.  The  Jonsonian  authorship  has  been 
again  forcibly  advocated  by  Professor  W.  Dinsmore  Briggs. 
See  The  Times  Literary  Supplement,  Nov,  12,  1914,  April  22, 
and  Nov.  18,  1915.  See  further,  Appleton  Morgan's  Intro- 
duction to  Hamlet  and  the  Ur-Hamlet  (Bankside  Shakespeare, 
1908,  p.  xxvii).  Sir  Sidney  Lee  appears  to  suppose  that  Heminge 
and  Condell  were  imitating  Jonson  in  these  prefaces.  Certain 
phrases  therein  he  says  "  crudely  echo  passages  "  in  Jonson's 
works  {Life  [1915],  p.  558).  This  appears  to  me  a  ridiculous 
suggestion.  The  prefaces  are  Jonsonian  to  the  core,  and  if  the 
two  "  deserving  men,"  or  either  of  them,  had  been  able  to  write 
in  this  style  it  is  pretty  certain  that  we  should  have  heard  of  other 
writings  from  their  pen.  But,  as  the  Cambridge  Editors  remark, 
they  had  no  "  practice  in  composition,"  these  editors  being  thus 
in  agreement  with  George  Steevens  who,  as  already  mentioned, 
says  of  the  two  players  that  they  were  "  wholly  unused  to  com- 
position "  [Dr.  Schelling  has  now  re-published  the  above 
mentioned  address  under  title  **  The  Seedpod  of  Shakespeare 
Criticism."] 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  17 

But,  as  every  student  of  Shakespeare  knows, 
the  players,  in  the  Preface  **  to  the  Great  Variety 
of  Readers,"  which  bore  their  signatures,  say,  or 
rather,  are  made  to  say,  that  the  readers  of  the 
plays  who  were  *'  before  ....  abus'd  with  diverse 
stolne,  and  surreptitious  copies,  maimed,  and 
deformed  by  the  frauds  and  stealthes  of  injurious 
imposters,"  are  now  presented  with  correct  ver- 
sions, '*  cur'd,  and  perfect  of  their  limbes  ;  and 
all  the  rest,  absolute  in  their  numbers,  as  he 
[Shakespeare]  conceived  them."  Whereupon  the 
Cambridge  Editors  justly  remark,  "  The  natural 
inference  to  be  drawn  from  this  statement  is  that 
all  the  separate  editions  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
were  *  stolen,'  *  surreptitious,'  and  *  imperfect,' 
and  that  all  those  published  in  the  Folio  were 
printed  from  the  author's  own  manuscripts.  But 
it  can  be  proved  to  demonstration  that  several  of 
the  plays  in  the  Folio  were  printed  from  earlier 
quarto  editions,  and  that  in  other  cases  the  quarto 
is  more  correctly  printed,  or  from  a  better  manu- 
script, than  the  Folio  text,  and  therefore  of  higher 
authority.  .  .  .  As  the  '  setters  forth  '  are  thus  con- 
victed of  a  *  siiggestio  falsi  '  in  one  point  it  is  not 
improbable  that  they  may  have  been  guilty  of  the 
like   in    another. ^^^ 

1  I  have  dealt  at  some  length  with  this  matter  in  Is  there  a 
Shakespeare  Problem  ?  ch.  XI.  As  Mr.  J.  Dover  Wilson  writes, 
"  The  title-page  (of  the  Folio)  is  inscribed  *  Published  according 
to  the  True  Originall  Copies,'  while  the  sub-title  on  a  later  page 
is  still  more  explicit  : — '  The  Workes  of  William  Shakespeare, 
containing  all  his  Comedies,  Histories,  and  Tragedies  :  Truely 
set  forth,  according  to  their  first  ORIGINALL,'  The  phrase  '  first 
original  '  can  mean  only  one  thing — author's  manuscript.  Mr. 
Dugdale  Sykes  is,  therefore,  perfectly  correct  in  his  statement 
that  those  responsible  for  the  Folio  claimed  to  be  printing  all  the 
plays  in  the  volume  from  Shakespeare's  autograph."  (Times 
Literary  Supplement,  Jan.  22,  1920.)  And  this  claim  we  know 
to  be  false. 


18  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

Jon&on  then,  as  writer  of  the  prefaces,  and 
closely  associated  with  the  preparation  and  pub- 
lication of  the  Folio,  was  guilty  of  the  suggestio 
falsi  concerning  the  ''  stolne  and  surreptitious 
copies,"  with  which  the  Cambridge  Editors  justly 
charge  the  ''  setters  forth,"  or  the  "  literary  man  " 
who,  as  they  suggest,  wrote  the  prefaces  for  them. 
And  even  if  it  may  be  contended,  as  Mr.  A.  W. 
Pollard  contends,  that,  speaking  strictly  by  the 
card,  the  statement  was  true,  inasmuch  as  "  not 
all  but  only  some  of  the  quartos  ought  to  be  treated 
as  "  stolne  and  surreptitious,"  that  cannot  acquit 
the  author  of  the  preface,  seeing  that,  as  this 
learned  writer  admits,  '*  zvith  the  sale  of  the  First 
Folio  in  view  it  was  doubtless  intended  to  be 
interpreted  "  as  it  has,  in  fact,  been  interpreted 
ever  since,  viz.  :  that  the  plays  were  all  now  for 
the  first  time  published  from  perfect  author's 
manuscripts,  which  certainly  is  very  far  from  the 
truth.' 

Jonson  must  have  known  also  that  a  large 
quantity  of  work  was  included  in  the  Folio  which 
was  not  "'  Shakespearean  "  at  all,  i.e,^  which  was 
not  the  work  of  the  real  *'  Shakespeare,"  whoever 
he  was,  the  one  supremely  great  man  who  has 
given  us  such  plays  as  Hajnlet,  Lear^  and  Othello^ 
to  take  but  three  examples.  Many  plays  had  been 
published  in  the  convenient  name  of  **  Shakes- 
peare," or  as  by  ''  W.S.,"  such  as  the  Tragedy  of 
Locrine  (1595),  Sir  John  Oldcastle  (1600),  Thomas 
Lord  Cromwell  (1602),  The  London  Prodigal  (1605), 
The  Puritan  (1607),  A   Yorkshire  Tragedy  (1608)' 

1  See  Shakespeare  Folios  and  Quartos,  by  A.  W.  Pollard  (1909), 
pp.   1.  2. 

2  Both  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy  and  The  Tivo  Noble  Kinsmen  were 
licensed  as  by  Shakespeare. 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  19 

and  Pericles  (1609).  All  these  were  rejected  by 
the  editor,  or  editors,  of  the  First  Folio,  although 
they  were  included  by  the  editors  of  the  Third 
Folio  (1664)  and  retained  by  the  editors  of  the 
Fourth    FoHo    (1685). 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  included  in  the 
First  Folio  such  plays  as  Henry  F/.,  Part  /., 
which  all  are  agreed  is  not  Shakespearean,  although 
it  is  possible  that  it  contains  some  few  items  of 
Shakespeare's  work  ;  Henry  VI.,  Parts  II.  and 
///.,  a  very  large  part  of  which  is  certainly 
not  Shakespearean  ;  Titus  Andronicus,  which, 
according  to  the  overwhelming  balance  of  authority, 
is  not  Shakespearean  ;  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew, 
as  to  which  it  is  unanimously  agreed  that  Act  I. 
is  not  Shakespeare's,  and  which  is  considered  by 
many,  and  I  think  with  reason,  not  to  be  Shake- 
spearean at  all ;  Timon  of  Athens  generally  believed 
to  be  very  largely  non-Shakespearean  ;  and  other 
plays,  such  as  Troilus  and  Cressida,  in  which  the 
work  of  one  or  two  other  pens  is,  probably,  to  be 
found.  Nevertheless,  all  these  plays  were  pub- 
lished as   by  "  Shakespeare." 

Again,  take  the  case  of  Henry  VIII.  James 
Spedding  long  ago  proved  that  the  greater  part 
of  this  play,  including  Wolsey's  famous  soliloquy, 
and  Buckingham's  beautiful  and  pathetic  speech 
on  his  way  to  execution,  is  the  work  of  Fletcher  ; 
and  now  Mr.  H.  Dugdale  Sykes,  in  an  excellent 
little  book  published  at  the  Shakespeare  Head 
Press  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  with  the  blessing  of 
that  strictly  orthodox  Shakespearean,  the  late 
Mr.  A.  H.  BuUen,  entitled  Sidelights  on  Shake- 
speare, has  contended — and  I  think  there  can  be 
no  doubt  he  is  right — that  all  of  this  magnificent 
drama  that  was  not  written  by  Fletcher  is  the  work 


20  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

of  Massinger.  In  fact,  as  Mr.  Sykes  writes,  **  the 
editor  of  the  foHo  foisted  upon  the  pubUc  as  a 
Shakespearean  drama  an  early  work  of  Massinger 
and   Fletcher's." 

What,  then,  becomes  of  the  supposed  guarantee 
of  "  those  deserving  men  "  Heminge  and  Condell  ? 
What  becomes  of  the  dismal  farce  of  the  "  unblotted 
manuscripts  ?  " 

Let  us'  listen  to  what  Mr.  Dugdale  Sykes, 
himself,  I  believe,  a  quite  orthodox  *'  Stratfordian," 
has  to  say  on  these  points.  In  reply  to  the  question 
how  it  was  that  Heminge  and  Condell  came  to 
include  Henry  VIII.  in  the  First  Folio  Shakespeare, 
and  how  it  was  that  Waterson  came  to  put  Shake- 
speare's name  with  Fletcher's  on  the  title-page  of 
The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  he  writes,  "  I  suggest  as 
a  possible  answer  to  this  question  that  neither 
Heminge  and  Condell  nor  Waterson  possessed  a 
higher  standard  of  honesty  than  seems  to  have 
been  prevalent  among  the  publishers  of  their 
day  :  that  in  this  respect  there  may  have  been 
little  to  choose  between  them  and  Humphrey 
Moseley,  who  in  1647  printed  as  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  (from  *  the  author's  original  copies  ') 
thirty-five  plays  of  which  a  large  number  were 
written  by  Massinger  and  Fletcher,  while  three 
(The  Laws  of  Candy,  The  Fair  Maid  of  the  Inn, 
and  Love's  Cure)  contain  no  recognizable  trace 
either  of  Beaumont  or  Fletcher.  When  we  find 
that  two  publishers  issued  spurious  plays  as 
Shakespeare's  during  his  lifetime,  and  that  a  third 
put  Shakespeare's  name  on  the  title-page  of  the 
early  play  of  King  John  in  1623,  there  appears  to 
me  to  be  no  reason  why  we  should  accept  Heminge 
and  Condell's  attribution  of  Henry  VIIL  to 
Shakespeare  as  decisive.     And  I  submit  that  we 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  21 

have  a  solid  reason  for  doubting  their  honesty, 
inasmuch  as  their  assertion  that  all  the  plays  in 
the  Folio  were  printed  from  the  author's  manu- 
scripts is  known  to  be  untrue."^ 

So  much  then  for  the  '*  deserving  men,"  and 
the  "  True  Originalls  "  and  the  "  unblotted 
manuscripts,"  And  what  becomes  of  Jonson's 
testimony  ?  Jonson  was  ''  in  the  swim."  He 
was  concerned  ''  up  to  the  hilt  "  in  the  publication 
of  the  Folio,  and  all  these  facts  must  have  been 
within    his    knowledge. 

The  orthodox  were  wont  to  appeal  to  Messrs. 
Heminge  and  Condell  as  though  it  were  blas- 
phemous to  doubt  the  truth  of  any  word  they  have 
said.  Now  this  bubble  has  been  pricked,  and 
soon,  perhaps,  it  may  dawn  upon  the  critics  that 
"  Jonson's  testimony  "  with  regard  to  the  Shake- 
spearean Folio  and  its  supposed  author  is  not  of 
much  greater  value.  He  knew  that  not  all  the 
plays    included    in    the    Folio    were    written     by 

1  The  Tzco  Noble  Kinsmen  was  attributed  on  the  title-page  of 
the  first  Edition  (163-1)  to  "  the  memorable  worthies  of  their 
time,  Mr.  John  Fletcher  and  Mr.  William  Shakespeare."  It  is 
now,  as  I  apprehend,  established  by  Mr.  Dugdale  Sykes,  following 
"  Mr.  Robert  Boyle's  extremely  able  advocacy  of  Massinger's 
claims  to  the  authorship  of  the  scenes  attributed  to  Shakespeare  " 
(Transactions  of  the  New  Shakespeare  Society  for  1882),  that 
the  play  is  the  joint  work  of  Massinger  and  Fletcher.  See  Mr. 
A.  H.  Bullen's  Prefatory  note  to  Sidelights  on  Shakespeare,  p.  viii. 
With  regard  to  Waterson's  ascription  of  the  play  to  Shakespeare 
and  Fletcher  in  1634,  Mr.  Sykes  writes,  "  The  omission  of  the 
play  from  the  later  Shakespeare  Folios  and  its  inclusion  in  the 
second  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  Folio,  after  it  had  been  issued 
with  Shakespeare's  name  on  the  title-page,  deprives  this  of  any 
value."  (See  Times  Literary  Supplement,  Jan.  1,  1920).  Mr. 
Sykes,  by  the  way,  warns  us  that  "  the  inclusion  of  the  play  in 
the  second  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  folios  is  of  no  more  value  as 
evidence  for  Beaumont  than  for  Massinger,  as  it  has  been  estab- 
lished beyond  doubt  that  Massinger  and  not  Beaumont  was 
Fletcher's  partner  in  a  large  number  of  the  so-called  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher  plays."     Work  cited,  p.   1   note. 


22  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

"  Shakespeare  "  ;  he  knew  well  enough  that  they 
were  not  printed  from  the  **  true  originals  "  ;  he 
knew  that  the  statement  about  the  "  unblotted 
manuscripts  "  was  mere  fudge. ^  It  is  not  necessary 
to  condemn  him  and  the  players  as  guilty  of 
dishonesty  in  the  same  measure  as  we  should  do 
if  we  tried  them  by  the  standard  of  the  present 
day,  for  we  should  remember  that  such  aberration 
from  the  path  of  strict  veracity  was,  as  Mr.  Dugdale 
Sykes  truly  says,  looked  upon  as  a  more  or  less 
venial  offence  in  those  times  when  Hterary 
mystifications  of  this  sort  were  of  common 
occurrence,  and  when  plays,  and  other  works, 
were  frequently  published  in  the  names  of  writers 
who  were  not  really  the  authors  thereof. 

And  now,  in  1623,  all  *'  Shakespeare's  "  plays 
were  to  be  published  in  collected  form,  "  Truely 
set  forth,  according  to  their  first  ORIGINALL," 


1  Very  much  the  same  thing  was  said  about  Fletcher  by  Moseley 
in  his  introduction  to  the  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  Folio,  viz.  : 
that  what  he  wrote  was  "  free  from  interlining  "  and  that  he 
"  never  writ  any  one  thing  twice."  The  saying  appears  to  have 
become  a  cliche.  Moreover,  what  of  Jonson's  statement  in  his 
eulogium  prefixed  to  the  Folio  to  the  effect  that  Shakespeare  was 
wont  to  "  strike  the  second  heat  upon  the  Muses  anvil,"  in  order 
to  fashion  his  "  well-turned  and  true-filed  lines  "  ?  This  means, 
of  course,  that,  instead  of  writing  currente  calamo  and  leaving 
**  scarse  a  blot  "  on  his  papers  (an  absurd  idea  on  the  face  of  it), 
he  carefully  revised  his  plays.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  when 
these  plays  were  handed  to  the  players  (if  ever  they  were  so 
handed)  either  the  manuscripts  must  have  shown  many  a  blotted 
line,  or  the  players  received  "  fair  copies."  If  we  adopt  the  first 
alternative  the  statement  of  the  writer  of  the  Folio  preface  was 
untrue  ;  if  we  adopt  the  second  the  hypothesis  of  the  fair  copies 
is  vindicated.  Some  critics,  however,  who  cling  tenaciously 
to  the  idea  of  the  "  unblotted  manuscripts  "  would  have  us  reject 
Jonson's  testimony  as  to  Shakespeare's  patient  revising.  Jonson, 
in  fact,  is  to  be  taken  as  an  unimpeachable  witness  of  truth  when 
it  suits  these  critics  so  to  take  him,  but  to  be  summarily  dismissed 
as  untrustworthy  when  his  testimony  does  not  square  with  their 
theories.     In  any  case,  then,  Jonson's  evidence  is  discredited. 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE         23 

as  the  second  title-page  of  the  Folio  informs  the 
reader.  But  alas,  they  were  far  from  being  all 
Shakespearean  work,  and  many  of  them  far  from 
being  **  set  forth  according  to  their  first  original.'* 
Jonson,  however,  was  employed  to  give  the  volume 
a  good  send-off,  not  only  by  writing  the  prefaces, 
and  making  himself  responsible  for  the  statements 
therein  contained,  together  with  those  on  the  two 
title-pages,  but  also  by  the  exercise  of  his  poetical 
genius.  He  accordingly  wrote  the  very  remarkable 
lines  which  face  the  paralysing  Droeshout  engraving 
and  also  the  long  eulogy  signed  by  his  name 
prefixed  to  the  Folio. 

Now,  what  was  the  state  of  the  case,  as  I  conceive 
it  to  have  been  ?  I  conceive  that  the  name  of 
**  Shakespeare,"  first  given  to  the  public  on  the 
dedicatory  page  of  Venus  and  Adonis^  in  1593,  had 
been  adopted  as  a  convenient  mask-name.^  That 
many  subsequently  wrote  under  that  name  besides 
the  real  ''  Shakespeare,"  whoever  he  was,  is  a 
simple  matter  of  fact,  and  also  that  they  did  so 
unrebuked  and  unrestrained,  without  let  or 
hindrance.  I  conceive  that  several  men  of  high 
position,  but,  more  especially  one  man  of  high 
position  and  of  supreme  genius,  wrote  plays 
under    that    name.     I    conceive    that    Shakspere, 

^  In  its  hyphenated  form  the  name  '  Shake-speare,"  which  so 
often  appears,  was  an  excellent  pseudonym.  But  why  on  earth 
should  player  Shakspere  wish  to  appear  as  "  Shake-speare  ?  " 
A  man  of  the  name  of  Northcliffe  {e.g.)  does  not  usually  desire 
to  publish  under  the  name  of  "  North-Cliffe."  Nor  if  his  name 
happens  to  be  Sheepshanks  does  he  give  his  writings  to  the 
pubHc  in  the  name  of  '  Sheep-Shanks."  Nor  does  Mr. 
Ramsbottom  feel  any  call  to  write  in  the  name  of  "  Rams-Bottom." 
*  Shake-speare  "  was  a  good  "  mask-name,"  et  voild  tout.  As  old 
Thomas  Fuller  says,  the  name  has  a  warlike  sound,  "  Hasti- 
vibrans"  or  **  Shake-speare,"  and  as  Jonson  writes,  it  is  a  name 
under  which  the  author 

*  Seems  to  shake  a  lance 
As  brandish 'd  in  the  eyes  of  ignorance." 


24  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

the  actor- manager,  who  was  probably  himself 
able  to  **  bumbast  out  a  blank  verse,"  acted  as 
"  honest  broker  "  for  these  plays. ^  He  received 
them,  and  put  them  on  the  stage  if  he  thought  fit 
to  do  so,  and  they  became,  presumably,  the 
property  of  the  Company.  They  became 
"  Shakespeare's  "  plays,  and  the  authorship,  about 
which  there  was  no  questioning — for  who  cared 
a  twopenny  button-top  about  the  authorship  at 
that  date  ?^ — was,  I  take  it,  generally  attributed 
to  him,  though,  as  a  fact,  it  must  have  been  known 
that,  whether  he  or  somebody  else  were  the  real 
"  Shakespeare,"  many  of  these  plays  were  not 
*'  Shakespearean  "  at  all.  But  this  was  a  matter 
in  which  but  few  people  took  any  interest  in  those 
days. 

Now,  some  six-and-twenty  years  ago  Frances  E. 
Willard  wrote  in  the  Arena  Magazine  (Boston, 
Mass.,  1893)  :  "  It  seems  perfectly  reasonable  to 
me  that  Lord  Bacon  and  a  number  of  other 
brilliant  thinkers  of  the  Elizabethan  era,  who  were 
nobles,  and  who,  owing  to  the  position  of  the 
stage,  would  not  care  to  have  their  names  associated 
with  the  drama,  composed  or  moulded  the  plays." 
This  fairly  well  expresses  my  own  view,  with  the 
qualification  that  I  make  no  assumption  whatever 

1  If  Jonson  in  his  Poet- Ape  Epigram  referred  to  Shakspere,  as 
seems  to  be  almost  certain,  he  considered  him  as,  at  that  time, 
concerned  in  the  "  brokage  "  of  other  men's  writings.  See  below, 
at  p.  27.     As  to  the  term  "  actor-manager,"  see  Note  B  at  p.  45. 

^  *'  In  earlier  times,  no  doubt,  people  didn't  trouble  at  all 
about  the  author  of  a  play.  It  was  the  play  '  presented  by  the 
Earle  of  Leicester's  servantes,'  '  by  the  children  of  Pawles,'  '  by 
the  children  of  the  chapell,'  '  by  the  Lord  Admiral's  servantes,' 
"  by  the  Lord  Chamberleynes'  servantes,'  or  by  '  Her  Majesties  ' 
servantes.'  We  have  much  the  same  thing  nowadays,  when  a 
producer  '  advertises  his  new  pieces  as  if  they  were  his  own 
invention  ;  and  when  we  have  phrases  like  '  the  new  Gaiety 
piece,'  '  the  new  Kingsway  play,'  etc." — Mr.  Ernest  Law  in  the 
Times  Literary  Supplement,  Dec.  30    1920. 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  25 

with  regard  to  the  ''  Baconian  "  hypothesis. 
I  would  rather  say,  *'  it  seems  perfectly  reasonable 
to  me  "  that  some  men  of  high  position,  and 
especially  one  great  man  of  transcendant  ability, 
wrote  dramas  under  the  mask-name  of  "  Shake- 
speare " — a  name  which  had  been  already  adopted 
by  the  author  of  Venus  and  Adonis — which  were 
confided  to  the  actor-manager  to  be  put  upon  the 
stage.  If  anybody  asks  why  they  should  think 
it  necessary  to  conceal  their  identity,  I  need  do 
no  more  than  advise  him  to  study  the  social  history 
of  the  Elizabethan  age.  *'  The  period  of  the 
Tudors,"  writes  E.  A.  Petherick,  in  his  preface  to 
Edwin  Johnson's  Rise  of  English  Culture,  '*  was 
not  only  a  time  of  severe  repression  and  of  harsh 
government,  but  also  a  time  when  free  speech  was 
impossible.  Able  men  could  only  dissemble  and 
speak  in  allegory.  The  plays  of  Shakespeare  and 
of  other  writers  are  doubtless  a  reflection  of  the 
period  ;  the  names  but  a  disguise — the  play- 
writers  merely  the  spokesmen  of  those  who  would 
have  been  sent  to  the  Tower  and  the  Block  if  they 
had  expressed  their  opinions  openly."  This 
may  be  an  exaggerated  statement,  but  quite 
apart  from  any  fear  of  punishment,  to  write 
dramas  for  the  players  was  considered  altogether 
below  the  dignity  of  a  noble,  or  any  man  of  high 
position  in  the  community.  However  innocent 
might  be  the  work,  it  brought  him  into  ridicule 
and  contempt,  and  might  prove  an  insuperable 
obstacle  to  his  advancement  in  the  State.  Even 
to  publish  poetry  in  his  own  name  was  unworthy 
of  a  man  of  high  position.^     In  these  circumstances 

1  This  was  so  even  at  a  much  later  time.  The  learned  Selden 
{e.g.)  writes,  "  'Tis  ridiculous  for  a  Lord  to  print  verses  ;  'tis  well 
enough  to  make  them  to  please  himself,  hut  to  make  them  publick 
is  foolish." — Table  Talk,  under  title  "  Poetrv." 


26         JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

it  was  but  natural  that  men  in  high  place,  who  had 
in  mind,  it  might  be,  to  instruct  and  improve,  as 
well  as  to  entertain,  the  pubHc,  through  the  medium 
of  the  drama,  should  do  so  under  the  disguise  of  a 
pen-name  ;  and  ''  Shakespeare,"  or,  as  it  was  so 
often  written  on  title-pages,  ''  Shake-speare," 
formed  an  excellent  pen-name. 

But  now  the  time  had  come  when  these 
**  Shakespearean  "  plays — those  of  them  which 
appeared  to  the  editor,  or  editors,  of  the  Folio  to 
be  most  worthy  of  publication — were  to  be 
collected  and  republished  (such  as  had  already 
been  published),  and  with  them  were  to  be  given 
to  the  world  sixteen  dramas  which  had  never  seen 
the  light  in  print  before,  including  such  master- 
pieces of  literature  as  Twelfth  Night,  As  You  Like 
It,  A  Winter's  Tale,  Julius  Caesar,  Macbeth  and 
Cymheline.  These  now,  seven  years  after  William 
Shakspere's  death,  were  to  be  rescued  from  that 
oblivion  to  which  the  actor-author  (if,  indeed,  he 
was  the  author  of  them)  was,  apparently,  quite 
content  that  they  should  be  consigned. 

And  now  Jonson  was  to  write  a  poetical  panegyric 
which  should  commend  the  Folio  to  the  reading 
public,  and  give  it  a  good  send-off.  And  right 
well  he  did  it,  and  fully  does  the  world  now 
recognise  that  he  did  not  exaggerate  by  one  jot  or 
tittle  the  eulogy  of  that  ''  Shakespeare  "  whose 
writings  he  held  up  to  the  admiration  of  all  readers, 
as    such 

"  As  neither  Man,  nor  Muse,  can  praise  too 
much." 

The  plays,  I  repeat,  were  the  plays  of  the  actor- 
manager  ;  they  were,  it  would  seem,  the  property 
of  his  Company  ;  they  were  '*  Shakespeare's  "  plays, 
and  the  authorship  was,  we  may  suppose,  generally 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  27 

ascribed  to  him,  so  far  as  anyone  ever  concerned 
himself  about  the  authorship.  It  was,  then,  for 
Jonson  to  eulogize  "  Shakespeare,"  and  for  the 
general  public  "  Shakespeare  "  would,  I  imagine, 
be  Shakspere  of  Stratford,  the  actor-manager.^ 
The  true  Shakespeare's  real  name  could  not  be 
revealed,  but  some  ostensible  author  there  must  be. 
Why,  then,  disturb  the  accepted  legend  ?  So 
Shakespeare  would  for  the  general  public  be  the 
**  Swan  of  Avon,"  as  he  appears  in  Jonson's  poem. 

But  here  the  indignant  critic  will  doubtless 
interpose.  '*  What  !  Jonson  wrote  thus,  though 
knowing  all  the  facts.  Then,  according  to  you, 
Jonson  was  a  liar  !  "  Whereat  we  of  the 
**  heretical  "  persuasion  can  afford  to  smile.  For 
we  see  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Jonson  might  not 
have  taken  the  course  we  attribute  to  him,  and 
considered  himself  quite  justified  in  so  doing. 

Nearly  three  hundred  years  sever  us  from  the 
publication  of  the  Folio,  and,  as  I  have  already 
said,  we  know  that  at  that  date  very  much  less 
strict  views  were  commonly  held  as  to  the  obliga- 
tions of  literary  integrity.  Literary  deceptions — 
**  frauds  "  w^e  might  perhaps  call  them  at  the 
present  day — were  constantly  perpetrated.  Works 
were  not  infrequently  attributed  by  their  authors 
to  other  writers,  who  were,  in  fact,  guiltless  of  any 
responsibility  for  them.  Moreover,  nobody  at 
that  date  could  foresee  that  the  authorship  of  the 
Shakespearean  plays  would  be  a  matter  of  such 
transcendant  importance  as  it  has  now  become. 
Not  having  met  Jonson  in  the  flesh,  and  not 
knowing  what  his  view^s  may  have  been  with 
regard  to  these  literary  deceptions,  or  by  what 
constraining  influences  his  action  may  have  been 
1  But  see  Note  B  at  p.  45. 


28  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

governed,  but  knowing  something  concerning 
the  practice  of  the  times  in  this  connexion,  I  see 
nothing  unreasonable  in  beheving  that  he  acted 
as  I  have  suggested,  and  I  should  no  more  think 
of  calling  him  ''  a  liar  "  on  that  account  than  I 
should  think  of  branding  Sir  Walter  Scott  with 
that  opprobrious  epithet  because  he  denied  point- 
blank  the  authorship  of  the  Waver  ley  Novels. 
We  know  that  he  considered  himself  justified  in 
so  doing,  and  we  doubt  not  that  Jonson  also  con- 
sidered himself  justified  in  what  he  did. 

So  much,  then,  for  Jonson's  famous  panegyric, 
which  probably  did  more  for  the  sale  of  the  Folio 
than  even  his  equally  famous  suggestio  falsi  (in 
the  Preface  "  To  the  Great  Variety  of  Readers  "), 
to  the  effect  that  all  the  plays  therein  included 
were  now  published  "  perfect  of  their  limbes  " 
and  ''  absolute  in  their  numbers,"^  as  the  poet 
conceived  them.  What  now  of  the  allusion  to 
Shakespeare  in  his  Discoveries  ?  Here  Jonson, 
writing  late  in  life,  apparently  some  time  between 
1630  and  1637,  records  in  glowing  terms  the  high 
personal  regard  in  which  he  held  Shakespeare  the 
man.  *'  I  loved  the  man  and  do  honour  his 
memory  on  this  side  idolatry  as  much  as  any." 
But  he  goes  on  to  say  of  him  that  he  was  such  a 
voluble  talker  that  at  times  it  was  necessary  to 
*'  closure  "  him.  He  had  to  be  "  stopped."  Like 
Haterius,  who  had  such  a  deplorable  rapidity  of 
utterance,  "  sufflaminandus  erat,"^  i.e.,  the  brake 
had   to   be   applied.     "  His   wit   was   in    his   own 

1  As  already  mentioned,  this  is  a  classical,  and  quite  Jonsonian 
expression.  Like  certain  other  expressions  in  the  Epistle  Dedi- 
catory, evidential  of  the  Jonsonian  authorship,  it  is  taken  from 
Pliny  ;  "  liber  numeris  omnibus  absolutus  "  (Ep.  9,  38).  Not 
much  like  poor  Heminge  and  Condell,  I  apprehend  1 

2  The  word  sufflaminare  means  to  check  or  repress  in  speaking. 
See  Is  there  a  Shakespeare  Prob/e?n  ?  p.  387,  and  the  passages 
from  Seneca  and  Menage  there  cited. 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  29 

power,  would  that  the  rule  of  it  had  been  so  too," 
says  Jonson.  "  Nevertheless,"  adds  Ben,  *'  he 
redeemed  his  vices  with  his  virtues." 

Now,  is  it  credible  that  Jonson  was  here  speaking 
of  the  man  whom  he  had  so  eulogized  some  ten 
or  twelve  years  before  ;  the  "  soul  of  the  age,"  the 
man  whom  he  believed  to  have  been  the  author 
of  Hamlet y  Lear,  Othello,  Macbeth,  and  all  those 
wondrous  plays  of  which  he  had  spoken  with  such 
glowing  admiration  some  thirteen  years  before  ? 
If  he  was  speaking  of  the  player  only,  knowing 
that  the  author — who  was  "  not  of  an  age  but 
for  all  time  " — was  a  different  person,  there  is 
nothing  extraordinary  in  this  carping,  though,  as 
we  may  believe,  quite  just  criticism  which  has  so 
much  perturbed  and  astonished  those  who  assume 
that  he  is  alluding  in  such  shabby  and  disparaging 
terms  to  the  ''  sweet  Swan  of  Avon."  Or  must 
we  assume  that  he  was  in  his  dotage  when  he  so 
wrote  .^^ 

1  Jonson  says,  "  Many  times  he  fell  into  those  things  could  not 
escape  laughter,  as  when  he  said  in  the  person  of  Caesar,  one 
speaking  to  him,  '  Caesar,  thou  dost  me  wrong.'  He  replied, 
'  Caesar  did  never  wrong  but  v.ith  just  cause,'  and  such  like, 
which  were  ridiculous."  Can  this  be  a  reference  to  Shakespeare 
the  dramatist  ?  "  He  said  iii  the  perso7i  of  Caesar''  in  answer  to 
"  one  speaking  to  him  !  "  He  said  something  in  perso?ia  Caesaris  ! 
Would  one  so  speak  of  a  dramatist  with  reference  to  something 
he  had  zvritten  ?  Does  it  not  rather  indicate  something  said  on 
the  stage  by  an  actor,  as  Pope  long  ago  suggested  ?  And  "  he 
fell  "  into  things  which  excited  laughter.  Does  this  suggest  that 
Jonson  was  criticising  the  considered  writing  of  a  dramatist  ? 
Surely  it  rather  suggests  the  actor.  It  is  true  that  Jonson,  in  the 
Induction  to  his  Staple  of  Nezcs  (1625),  makes  "  Pi-ologus,"  say, 
"  Cry  you  mercy,  you  never  did  wrong  but  with  just  cause,"  but- 
this  does  not  prove  that  the  words  were  in  Shakespeare's  play. 
It  is  more  likely  that  Jonson  onlv  heard  them  at  the  theatre  (or 
heard  of  them  as  spoken  at  the  theatre),  as  Gifford  thought.  Can 
this  be  Jonson 's  deliberate  criticism  of  the  immortal  bard  whom 
he  had  lauded  to  the  skies  in  1623  ?  Or  is  he  speaking  of  the 
actor,  and  not  the  author  ?  (As  to  Jonson's  quotation,  "  Caesar 
did  never  wrong,"  etc.,  I  would  refer  the  reader  to  Is  there  a 
Shakespeare  Problem  ?  p.  390  and  following).  As  to  Jonson's 
borrowing  from  Seneca,  see  p.  59. 


30  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

But,  it  will  be  objected,  Jonson  speaks  of  the 
players  as  saying  of  Shakespeare  that  *'  he  never 
blotted  out  a  line,"  and  writes  of  them  as  com- 
mending ''  their  friend  "  by  that  "  wherein  he 
most  faulted."  Jonson,  therefore,  identifies 
player  and  poet.  And  this,  no  doubt,  will  be 
conclusive  for  those  who  find  it  impossible  to 
believe  that  Jonson  knew  all  the  facts  of  the  case, 
but  felt  bound  in  1630-6,  as  he  had  been  in  1623, 
not  to  reveal  them  to  the  world.  But  what  of 
the  **  unblotted  manuscripts  }  "  Are  we  really 
to  believe  that  player  Shakspere  wrote  Hamlet 
(e.g.)  currente  calamo^  and  '*  never  blotted  out  a 
line  ?  "  No  more  preposterous  suggestion  was 
ever  made,  even  in  Shakespearean  controversy. 
No  ;  if  the  players  really  said  of  Shakespeare  that 
he  **  never  blotted  out  a  line  "  (or  that  they  had 
**  scarse  received  from  him  a  blot  in  his  papers  ") 
and  if  the  statement  was  true,  so  far  as  their 
experience  went,  it  shows  that  the  players  had 
received  from  the  author  fair  copies  only,  and  here 
is  a  piece  of  evidence  which  the  sceptics  may  well 
pray  in  aid.  For  if  the  real  *'  Shakespeare  "  was 
"  a  concealed  poet  "  he  would,  naturally,  have 
had  fair  copies  of  his  dramas  made  for  him,  and 
these  would  have  been  set  before  the  players.  As 
R.  L.  Stevenson  wrote  long  ago,  "  We  hear  of 
Shakespeare  and  his  clean  manuscript  ;  but  in 
the  face  of  the  evidence  of  the  style  itself  and  of 
the  various  editions  of  Hamlet  this  merely  proves 
that  Messrs.  Heminge  and  Condell  were  un- 
acquainted with  the  common  enough  phenomenon 
called  a  fair  copy.  He  who  would  recast  a  tragedy 
already  given  to  the  world,  must  frequently  and 
earnestly  have  revised  details  in  the  study."  (Men 
and  Books,  p.  149).     But  let  the  reader  glance  at 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  31 

Shakspere's  signatures,  and  ask  himself  if  it  is 
possible  to  conceive  that  the  Shakespearean  dramas 
were  not  only  written  by  the  man  who  so  wrote, 
but  written  without  a  blot  !  No  ;  if  the  anti- 
Stratfordian  case  seems  improbable  here,  surely 
the  "  orthodox  "  case  is  more  improbable  still, 
so  improbable  indeed,  as  to  be  incredible.  And  of 
two  improbabilities,  if  such  there  be,  it  is  wise  to 
choose    the    less.^ 

But  there  are  some  earlier  Jonsonian  utterances 
upon  which  we  have  not  yet  touched,  but  which 
must  by  no  means  be  left  out  of  the  account.  In 
1616,  the  year  of  player  Shakspere's  death,  Jonson 
published  a  book  of  Epigrams.  The  volume  was 
dedicated  to  William  Earl  of  Pembroke,  Lord 
Chamberlain,  the  elder  brother  of  the  ''  Incom- 
parable Pair  "  of  the  Shakespeare  Folio,  and 
Jonson  writes,  ''  I  here  offer  to  your  lordship  the 
ripest  of  my  studies,  my  Epigrams."  Now  among 
these  Epigrams  appears  one  which  must  have 
been  written  a  good  many  years  earlier,  ''  On 
Poet-Ape,"  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  by 
**  Poet-Ape  "  Jonson  intended  to  make  reference 
to  player  Shakspere.  This  Epigram  runs  as 
follows  : — 

Poor  Poet-Ape,  that  would  be  thought  our  chief, 

Whose  works  are  e'en  the  frippery  of  wit, 
From  brokage  is  become  so  bold  a  thief, 

As  we,  the  robb'd,  leave  rage,  and  pity  it. 
At  first  he  made  low  shifts,  would  pick  and  glean, 

Buy  the  reversion  of  old  plays,  now  grown 
To  a  little  wealth  and  credit  in  the  scene, 

He  takes  up  all,  makes  each  man's  wit  his  own, 
And  told  of  this,  he  slights  it.     Tut,  such  crimes 

The  sluggish,  gaping  auditor  devours  ; 
He  marks  not  whose  'twas  first,  and  after  times 

May  judge  it  to  be  his  as  well  as  ours. 
Fool  !    as  if  half  eyes  will  not  know  a  fleece 

From  locks  of  wool,  or  shreds  from  the  whole  piece. 
1  See  further  on  Jonson 's  Discoveries,  Note  C  at  p.  56. 


32  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

Jonson,  then,  it  seems  looked  upon  Shakspere 
very  much  as  Greene  looked  upon  "  the  only 
Shakescene,"  viz.,  as  '*  an  upstart  crow  '* 
beautified  with  stolen  feathers/  ''  Poet-Ape  '* 
is  the  player-poet,  arrayed  in  garments  stolen  from 
others,  whose  works  are  *'  the  frippery  of  wit  '^ 
(i.e.^  the  cast-off  garments  of  others)  ;  who  lives 
by  '*  brokage  "  (was  Shakspere  then,  perchance, 
a  broker  of  plays  ?),  and  *'  makes  each  man's  wit 
his  own."  Here  we  may  compare  the  Prologue 
to  Jonson's  Poetaster  where  the  figure  of  Envy  is 
brought  on  the  stage  and  asks, 

"  Are  there  no  playera  here  ?     No  poet-apes  ?  " 

and  where  we  read  further 

"  And  apes  are  apes  though  clothed  in  scarlet," 

which  reminds  us  that  players  belonging  to  the 
royal   household   were   clothed  in   scarlet  cloth. 

We  remark  also  the  words  *'  he  takes  up  all," 
an  expression  which  brings  to  our  mind  Pantalabus 
of  the  Poetaster  (Act.  iii.,  sc.  i.).  This  Pantalabus 
was  a  player  and  "  parcel-poet  "^  who  had  the  repu- 
tation of  writing  *'  high,  lofty,  in  a  new  stalking 
strain,"  and  against  whom  Jonson  is  bitterly 
sarcastic.  His  name  is,  obviously,  derived  from 
the  Greek  ndvra  XaiA^dveiv  to  *'  take  all,"  or 
to  *'  take  up  all,"  as  "  Poet-Ape  "  is  said  to  do. 

In  this  play  also  (Act  I.,  sc.  1)  we  find  Tiicca^  the 
braggart  Captain  saying,  with  reference  to  the 
players,  **  They  forget  they  are  i'  the  statute,  the 
rascals,   they   are   blazoned   there,   there   they   are 

^  cf.  Horace  Epist.,  1,  3,  18. 

"  Ne  si  forte  suas  repetitum  venerit  olim 
Grex  avium  plumas,  inoveat  cornicula  risum 
Furtivis  nudata  coloribus." 
2  i.e.,  like  a  parcel-gilt  goblet,  a  poet  on  the  surface  only,  but 
inwardly  and  truly  only  base  metal.       Herrick  has  written  two 
lines  headed  "  Parcel-gilt  Poetry  " 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  33 

tricked,  they  and  their  pedigrees  ;  they  need  no 
other  heralds  I  wiss/'  The  statute  is,  of  course, 
the  statute  of  EHzabeth  (see  14  EHz.,  c.  5,  and  39 
Eliz.,  c.  4)  under  which  players  were  classed  with 
"  Rogues  and  Vagabonds  "  unless  duly  licensed 
to  play  under  the  hand  and  seal  of  any  Baron  of 
the  Realm  or  other  Personage  of  greater  Degree, 
and  one  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  words,  "  they 
are  blazoned  there,"  etc.,  are  a  hit  at  Shakspere's 
prolonged  but  ultimately  successful  efforts  to 
obtain  a  Coat  of  Arms,  to  which  Jonson  makes 
another  and  still  more  obvious  allusion  in  Every 
Man  out  of  his  Humour.  I  refer  to  the  conversation 
between  Sogliardo^  Sir  PuntarvolOy  and  Carlo 
Buffone,  the  Jester,  in  Act  III.,  sc.  1.  Here  we 
find   Sogliardo  saying, 

"  By  this  parchment,  gentlemen,  I  have  been  so  toiled 
among  the  harrots  [i.e.,  heralds]  yonder  you  will  not  believe  ; 
they  do  speak  i'  the  strangest  language  and  give  a  man  the 
hardest  terms  for  his  money,  that  ever  you  knew." 

*'  But,"  asks  Carlo  Buffone,  ''  ha*  you  arms  ? 
ha'  you  arms  ?  "  To  which  Sogliardo  replies  : 
"I'  faith  I  thank  God,  /  ca7i  write  myself  a  gentle- 
man now  ;  here's  my  patent,  it  cost  me  thirty 
pound  by  this  breath." 

Then,  after  more  talk  about  this  newly-granted 
"  coat  "  and  the  "  crest,"  during  which  Puntarvolo 
says  ("  aside  ")  *'  It  is  the  most  vile,  foolish, 
absurd,  palpable,  and  ridiculous  escutcheon  that 
ever  these  eyes  survised,"  the  same  character, 
asked  by  Sogliardo,  "  How  Hke  you  'hem, 
signior  .?  "  replies,  "  Let  the  word  [i.e.,  the  Motto] 
be,  *  Not  without  mustard.'  Your  crest  is  very 
rare,   sir." 

Now  these  words,  *'  not  without  mustard,"  are, 
I    think     undoubtedly    a    parody    of    the    Motto 


34  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

assigned  to  Shakspere,  when  he  and  his  father, 
after  much  "  toiUng  among  the  harrots,"  obtained 
from  them  a  grant  of  arms  with  the  challenging 
Motto  **  Non  sans  Droits  This  they  finally  did 
in  1599,  though  they  had  previously  obtained  a 
draft,  and  a  "tricking  "  {cf.  "  there  they  are 
tricked  '*  of  the  Poetaster)  in  October,  1596,  and 
another  later  in  the  same  year,  neither  of  which 
drafts,  says  Sir  Sidney  Lee,  was  fully  executed.^ 
Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour  was  produced  in 
1599,  and  it  may  be  noted  that  Sogliardo,  who  is 
laughed  at  as  "  a  boor  '*  by  Sir  Puntarvoloy  is  the 
younger  brother  of  Sordido^  a  farmer  (Shakspere's 
father  was  also  a  farmer  amongst  other  things)  and 
is  described  as  "  so  enamoured  of  the  name  of 
gentleman  that  he  will  have  it  though  he  buys  it." 
The  Poetaster  was  entered  on  the  stationers* 
registers  in  December,  1601.^ 

Now  is  it  possible  to  believe  that  when  Jonson 
composed  that  splendid  eulogium  of  *'  Shake- 
speare "  which  was  prefixed  to  the  Folio  of  1623, 
he  was  really  addressing  the  man  whom  he  had 
satirized  as  "  Poet-Ape,"  and  whose  proceedings 
in  obtaining  a  coat  of  arms,  in  order  that  he  might 
"  write  himself  a  gentleman,"  he  had  held  up  to 
public  contempt  and  ridicule  ?  It  appears  to  me 
impossible   so   to   believe.^ 

1  See  A  Life  of  Shakespeare  (1915),  p.  282  ^eg. 

2  I  have  dealt  with  these  matters  at  some  length  in  The  Shake- 
speare Problem  Restated  (1903).     See  p.  454  et  seq. 

'  If  he  had  come  to  look  upon  the  man  whom  he  had  satirized 
under  the  name  of  *'  Poet-Ape  "  as  having  become  the  "  Soul  of 
the  Age  "  would  he  have  repubhshed  the  Epigram  among  "  the 
ripest  of  his  studies  "  in  1616,  and  in  a  volume  dedicated  to  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke  ?  And  would  he  have  continued  the  con- 
temptuous passage  concerning  Shakspere's  coat  of  arms  in 
Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  when  he  published  that  play  in 
1601  and  again  in  1616  ? 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  35 

We,  therefore,  who  find  ourselves  unable  to 
believe  that  the  young  man  who  came  from 
Stratford  to  London  in  1587  as  ''a  Stratford 
rustic"  (as  Messrs.  Garnett  and  Gosse  very  truly 
describe  him  in  their  Illustrated  History  of  English 
Literature,  p.  200),  composed  "  Lovers  Labour's 
Lost  "  in,  say,  1590,  and  Venus  and  Adonis  in,  say, 
1592  ;  we  to  whom  the  arguments  against  the 
"  Stratfordian  "  authorship  appear  insuperable  ; 
we  who  are  in  agreement  with  Professor  Lefranc 
when  he  writes  :  '*  J'ai  la  conviction  que  toute 
personne  dont  le  jugement  est  reste  libre  en  ce 
qui  concerne  le  probleme  shakespearien,  recon- 
naitra  que  les  anciennes  positions  de  la  doctrine 
traditionelle  ne  sauraient  etre  maintenues  "^  ;  we 
"  heretics  "  are  convinced  that  when  Ben  Jonson 
wrote  his  panegyric  of  '*  Shakespeare  "  as  a  send- 
off  for  the  Folio,  in  the  publication  of  which  he 
was  so  closely  associated,  he  was  perfectly  well 
aware  that  "  Shakespeare  " — speak  of  him  as  the 
"  Swan  of  Avon  "  though  he  might,  and  depreciate 
his  learning  though  he  might^ — was,  in  truth  and  in 
fact,  but  a  mask-name  for  other  writers,  and  more 
particularly  for  one  man  of  transcendent  genius 
who  was,  indeed,  ''  not  of  an  age  but  for  all  time." 

1  Sous  de  Masque  de  "  William  Shakespeare,"  by  Abel  Lefrane, 
Professor  au  College  de  France  (1919),  Preface  p.  xiii. 

2  "  And  though  thou  hadst  small  Latin  and  less  Greek  "  wrote 
Jonson.  '*  Here,"  says  the  learned  Dr.  Ingleby,  "  hadst  is  the 
subjunctive.  The  passage  may  be  thus  paraphrased  :  '  Even 
if  thou  hadst  little  scholarship,  I  would  not  seek  to  honour  thee 
by  calling  thee  as  others  have  done,  Ovid,  Plautus,  Terence,  etc., 
i.e.,  by  the  names  of  the  classical  poets,  but  would  rather  invite 
them  to  witness  how  far  thou  dost  outshine  them.'  Ben  does 
not  assert  that  Shakespeare  had  '  little  Latin  and  less  Greek,'  as 
several  understand  him."  {Centurie  of  Prayse,  2nd  Edit.,  p.  151). 
This  may  be  correct,  but  others  contend  that  Ben's  words  are  to 
be  taken  not  in  the  subjunctive  but  in  the  indicative  mood.  It 
may  be  so,  since  Ben  was  writing  on  the  hypothesis  that  the 
player  would  be  generally  taken  as  the  poet,  and,  naturally,  had 
to  adapt  his  language  to  that  hypothesis.  Either  interpretation 
will  equally  well  suit  the  sceptical  case. 


36         JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

And  here  it  seems  right  that  I  should  say  a  word 
concerning  Jonson's  ten  Hnes  *'  To  the  Reader,'* 
introducing  him  to  the  Droeshout  Engraving  of 
"  Gentle  Shakespeare." 

Now  as  to  this  famous  engraving,  I  can  never 
understand  how  any  unprejudiced  person,  endowed 
with  a  sense  of  humour,  can  look  upon  it  without 
being  tempted  to  irreverent  laughter.  Not  only 
is  it,  as  many  have  pointed  out,  and  as  is  apparent 
even  to  the  untrained  eye,  altogether  out  of 
drawing  ;  not  only  is  the  head  preternaturally 
large  for  the  body  ;  not  only  is  it  quaintly  sug- 
gestive of  an  unduly  deferred  razor  ;  but  it  looks 
at  one  with  a  peculiar  expression  of  sheepish 
oafishness  which  is  irresistibly  comic.  As  George 
Steevens  long  ago  remarked,  "  Shakespeare's 
countenance  deformed  by  Droeshout  resembles 
the  sign  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  when  it  had 
been  changed  into  a  Saracen's  head,  on  which 
occasion  the  Spectator  observes  that  the  features 
of  the  gentle  knight  were  still  apparent  through 
the  lineaments  of  the  ferocious  Mussulman." 
Even  Mr.  Pollard  writes  :  "If  his  [Jonson's]  lines 
on  Droeshout's  portrait  are  compared  with  their 
subject,  we  may  well  be  inclined  to  wonder  whether 
he  had  seen  that  very  doubtful  masterpiece  at  the 
time  that  he  wrote  them  " — a  suggestion  which 
certainly  does  not  say  much  for  the  value  of 
Jonson's   testimony. 

And  it  is  of  this  ridiculous  caricature  that 
Jonson  writes  : 

This  Figure  that  thou  seest  put 
It   was    for   gentle    Shakespeare    cut 
Wherein  the  graver  had  a  strife 
With  nature  to  out-doo  the  hfe. 

Now  Jonson  was  an  enthusiast  concerning  the 
pictorial   art.     "  Whoever   loves   not   picture,"   he 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE         37 

writes,  *'  is  injurious  to  truth  and  all  the  wisdom 
of  poetry.  Picture  is  the  invention  of  heaven,  the 
most  ancient  and  most  akin  to  Nature."^  How 
then  could  he  have  thus  written  concerning  the 
Droeshout  signboard  ?  When  one  looks  at  this 
graven  image  of  the  Folio  frontispiece,  the  sugges- 
tion that  the  Graver  had  here  a  strife  with  nature 
to  "  out-doo  the  life  "  appears  to  be  so  absurd 
that,  surely,  it  can  hardly  be  taken  as  seriously 
intended. 

And  what  interpretation  are  we  to  put  upon  the 
following  lines  ? 

O,  could  he  but  have  drawn  his  wit 
As  well  in  brass  as  he  hath  hit 
His  face,  the  Print  would  then  surpasse 
All  that  was  ever  writ  in  brasse. 

Sir  Sidney  Lee's  comment  is  :  ''  Jonson's 
testimony  does  no  credit  to  his  artistic  discern- 
ment." But  is  it  possible  to  believe  that  old  Ben 
was  not  only  so  lacking  in  "  artistic  discernment  " 
but  also  so  deficient  in  the  sense  of  humour  and 
the  perception  of  the  grotesque  as  to  write  these 
lines  with  the  Droeshout  engraving  before  him,  if, 
indeed,  he  wrote  them  seriously  ?  I  think,  on 
the  contrary,  it  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  Jonson 
was  aware  when  he  so  wrote  that  this  portentous 
caricature  was  not,  in  truth  and  in  fact,  a  portrait 
of  the  true  Shakespeare  ;  that  the  lines  above 
quoted  are  capable  of  a  meaning  other  than  that 
which  the  ordinary  reader  would  put  upon 
them  ;  that,  as  that  '*  orthodox  "  writer,  Mr.  John 
Corbin,  says,  Ben  does  well  to  advise  the  reader, 
"  if  he  wants  to  find  the  real  Shakespeare,  to  turn 
to  the  plays  "  and  to  look  "  not  on  his  picture,  but 
his  book,"  which  is  certainly  very  excellent  advice. 

1  Discoveries  CIX.  and  CX.,  Poesis  et  pictura  and  De  Pictura. 


38         JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

Here,  then,  the  sceptic  can  find  no  strengthening 
of  the  orthodox  tradition  concerning  the  Shake- 
spearean authorship.  He  rather  prays  in  aid  the 
portentous  Droeshout  portrait,  and  the  Jonsonian 
lines,  as  lending  themselves  to  a  cryptic  inter- 
pretation which,  as  it  appears  to  him,  may  quite 
reasonably  be  put  upon  them,  and  which  is,  to 
say  the  least  of  it,  quite  consistent  with  the 
"  heretical  "  case.^ 

But  did  those  who  were  intimate  with  Shakspere 
of  Stratford  really  believe  that  he  was  the  man  whom 
Jonson  intended  to  eulogise  as  the  author  of  the 
plays  of  *'  Shakespeare  "  ?  Did  they  themselves 
believe  that  he  was,  in  truth  and  in  fact,  the  author 
of  those  plays  ? 

Now  but  twelve  years  after  Jonson's  magnificent 
panegyric  was  published,  viz.,  in  1635,  we  find 
that  the  Burbages,  to  wit,  Cuthbert  Burbage,  and 
Winifred,  the  widow  of  Richard  Burbage,  and 
William  his  son,  presented  a  petition  to  the  Earl 
of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  the  survivor  of 
the  "  Incomparable  Pair  "  to  whom  the  Folio 
was  dedicated  in  such  eulogistic  terms,  and  then 
Lord  Chamberlain,  praying  that  their  rights  and 
interests  in  the  Globe  Theatre,  which  they  say 
they  built  at  great  expense,  and  the  Blackfriars, 
which  was  their  inheritance  from  their  father — 
those  theatres  where  "  Shakespeare's  "  dramas 
were  presented — should  be  recognized  and  re- 
spected. The  petitioners  are  naturally  anxious  to 
say  all  they  possibly  can  for  themselves  and  the 
company  of  players  with  whom  they  were 
associated,  and  they  seek  to  enforce  their  claim  by 
a  reference  to  the  past  history  of  those  theatres, 

1  I  have  dealt  with  this  matter  at  greater  length  in  Is  there  a 
Shakespeare  Problem  ?  at  p.  395  et  seq. 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  39 

and  those  connected  with  them,  both  as  players  and 
profit-sharers.  One  of  those  players,  one  of  the 
"  partners  in  the  profits  of  that  they  call  the 
House  "  (viz.,  the  Globe)  was  William  Shakspere. 

And  how^  do  they  speak  of  him  ?  Surely  here 
was  a  great  opportunity  to  remind  the  Earl  that 
one  of  their  company  had  been  that  man  of 
transcendent  genius,  '*  Shakespeare,"  the  great 
dramatist,  the  renowned  poet,  the  "  sweet  swan 
of  Avon,"  whom  no  less  a  man  than  Ben  Jonson 
had  eulogised  but  twelve  years  before — viz.,  in 
that  great  work  containing  his  collected  plays 
which  was  dedicated  to  the  Earl  himself  and  his 
brother — as  the  "  Soul  of  the  age,  the  applause, 
delight,  the  w^onder  of  the  stage  "  ;  that  man  whom, 
and  whose  works,  the  two  Earls  had  "  prosecuted 
with  so  much  favour  "  during  his  lifetime  ! 
Surely  they  ought  to  have  done  this  !  Surely,  as 
shrewd  men  of  business,  wishing  to  recommend 
their  case  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  they  could 
not  fail  to  recite  these  facts,  so  much  in  their 
favour,  if  facts  they  were  !  Surely  they  must  have 
appealed  to  Jonson's  splendid  panegyric  of  their 
fellow,  it  they  really  believed  that  the  Earl  believed 
that  it  was  their  fellow  whom  Jonson  had  in  mind 
as  the  author  of  the  plays  and  the  object  of  his 
eulogy  !  Yet  what  do  they  actually  say  ?  *'  To 
ourselves  we  joined  those  deserving  men,  Shakespere, 
Heminge,  Condall,  Phillips,  and  others,  partners 
in  the  profits,  etc.,"  and,  as  to  the  Blackfriars, 
there  they  say  they  '  placed  men  players  which 
were  Hemings,  Condall,  Shakspeare,  etc." 

Those  of  the  orthodox  faith,  who  refuse  to  admit 
that  there  is  a  Shakespeare  Problem  at  all,  of 
course  make  light  of  this.  They  affect  to  think 
it    the    most    natural    thing   in    the    world.     Yet, 


40  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

surely,  to  the  impartial  man  it  must  seem  incredible 
that  the  Burbages  should  have  thus  written  about 
Shakspere,  calling  him  just  a  *'  man-player,"  and 
speaking  of  him  in  the  same  terms  as  of  the  other 
players,  viz.,  as  a  "  deserving  man,"  and  nothing 
more,  if  indeed  both  they  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain 
knew,  and  all  the  world  knew,  that  he  was  the 
immortal  poet  who  was  *'  not  of  an  age  but  for  all 
time,"  whose  collected  works,  dedicated  to  the 
two  Earls,  to  their  everlasting  honour,  had  been 
for  twelve  years  before  the  public,  and  whose 
poems,  dedicated  to  another  great  Earl,  were 
**  familiar  as  household  words  "  to  every  man  of 
the  time  who  had  the  slightest  pretension  to  literary 
taste  or  knowledge  !  The  author  of  Venus  and 
Adonis^  and  LucrecCy  of  Hamlet^  Lear^  and  Othello^ 
of  As  You  Like  It^  The  Merchant^  and  Twelfth 
Nighty  and  all  the  other  immortal  works,  but  a 
"  man-player  "  and  "  a  deserving  man  "  !  Is  it 
not  incredible  that  he  should  be  so  described  ? 

But  it  was  as  a  fellow-player — a  '*  man-player  " 
and  a  '*  deserving  man  " — that  the  Burbages  knew 
Shakspere.  It  was  in  these  capacities  that  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke  knew  him  ;  and  it  was  in  these 
capacities,  as  I  am  convinced,  that  Ben  Jonson 
knew  him,  however  much  it  may  have  suited  his 
purpose  and  the  purpose  of  those  who  were 
associated  with  him  in  the  publication  of  the  Folio, 
that  he  should  "  camouflage  "  the  immortal  poet 
under  the  semblance  of  the  player. 

The  truth  is,  as  I  cannot  doubt,  that  the  Burbages 
were  writing  as  plain  men  dealing  with  facts,  while 
Jonson*s  ambiguous  poem  has  to  be  interpreted 
in  an  esoteric  sense.  If  then,  the  real  truth  were 
known,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  '*  irrefragable 
rock  "   would  turn   out  to   be   but  scenic  canvas 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  41 

after  all.  There  was  **  camouflage  "  even  in 
those  days,  and  plenty  of  it,  although  the  name 
was  then  unknown.^ 

1  Another  instance  in  point  is  the  case  of  John  Manningham, 
barrister  of  the  Middle  Temple,  a  cultured  and  well-educated 
man,  who  saw  Tzvelfth  Night  acted  in  the  Hall  of  that  Inn,  and  was 
so  struck  by  it  that  he  makes  an  appreciative  note  in  his  diary 
concerning  it,  under  date  Feb.  2,  1601,  yet  had  no  idea  that 
player  Shakspere  was  the  author  of  the  play,  for  on  March  13  of 
the  same  year  he  makes  a  note  of  a  scandalous  story  concerning 
Burbage  and  Shakspere  while  acting  in  Richard  III.,  and  instead 
of  recording  that  Shakspere  was  the  author  either  of  that  play 
or  of  the  play  that  pleased  them  so  much  on  the  occasion  of  their 
Grand  Night  at  the  Middle  Temple,  he  appends  the  laconic 
remark,  "  Shakespeare's  name  William  !  "  How  differently  did 
he  speak  of  Ben  Jonson  !  Would  he  write  "  Jonson's  name 
Benjamin  ?  "  Hardly.  He  well  knew  the  literary  and  the 
theatrical  world,  and  he  tells  us  of  "  Ben  Jonson,  the  poet," 
though  "  Shakespeare  the  poet  "  was  unknown  to  him  !  See 
the  Diary  under  date  Feb.  12,  1603. 


NOTE  A 
JONSON  AND  BACON 

Although  I  have  no  intention  of  appearing  as  an 
advocate  of  the  "  Baconian  "  hypothesis,  it  seems 
desirable  to  say  a  word  here  concerning  the 
relations  between  Bacon  and  Jonson. 

There  is,  I  think,  good  warrant  for  saying  that 
in  some  of  his  dramas  Jonson  made  satirical 
allusions  to  Bacon,  but,  however  this  may  be,  it  is 
certain  that  in  later  years  the  two  were  on  very 
intimate  terms,  and  that  Jonson  entertained  feelings 
of  the  highest  respect  and  esteem  towards  *'  the 
large-browed  Verulam."^  I  do  not  know  that 
there  is  evidence  to  show  just  how  it  was  that  such 
intimacy  commenced,  but  we  learn  from  his 
conversation  with  Drummond  that  when  Ben  was 
setting  forth,  in  the  summer  of  1618,  on  his  walk 
to  Scotland,  Bacon  laughingly  told  him  that  '*  he 
loved  not  to  see  Poesy  go  on  other  feet  than 
poetical  Dactylus  and  Spondaeus."  We  know, 
too,  that  Bacon  wrote  in  1623,  the  very  year  of  the 
publication  of  the  Shakespeare  Folio,  *'  My  labours 
are  now  most  set  to  have  those  works  which  I  had 
formerly  published.  .  .  .  well  translated  into  Latin 
by  the  help  of  some  good  pens  that  forsake  me 
not  "^;  and  that  Jonson  was  one  of  these  "  good 
pens  "  we  know,  because,  in  "  Remains  now  set 
forth  by  him  under  the  title  of  Baconiana,"  Arch- 
bishop Tenison  relates  that  the  Latin  translation 
of  Bacon's  Essays  "  was  a  work  performed  by 
diverse  hands  ;  by  those  of  Dr.  Hackett  (late 
Bishop  of  Lichfield),  Mr.  Benjamin  Johnson  (the 
learned    and   judicious    poet),    and    others    whose 

1  It  seems  somewhat  remarkable  that  Jonson's  feelings  con- 
cerning both  Bacon  and  "  Shakespeare  "  appear  to  have  changed 
at  just  about  the  same  time. 

2  Spedding.     Letters  and  Life,  Vol.  VIL,  p.  428. 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  43 

names  I  once  heard  from  Dr.  Rawley,  but  I  cannot 
now  recall  them." 

But  there  is  evidence  that  Jonson  was  working 
for  Bacon  some  years  before  1623.  We  find,  for 
example,  Thomas  Meautys  writing  to  Lord  St. 
Alban  in  1621-2,  "  Your  books  are  ready  and 
passing  well  bound  up.  Mr.  Johnson  will  be 
with  your  lordship  to-morrow."^  But,  further, 
we  know  that  on  January  22,  1621,  Bacon  had  kept 
his  sixtieth  birthday  at  York  House,  and  that 
Jonson  had  been  with  him,  and  had  composed  his 
well-known   Ode  in  honour  of  that  event. ^ 

We  find,  then,  Jonson  a  frequent  visitor,  if  not 
also  a  resident,  at  York  House,  on  intimate  terms 
with  Bacon,  writing  a  highly  complimentary  ode 
to  him  on  his  birthday,  and  translating  his  works 
into  Latin  in  1623,  the  date  when  the  Shakespeare 
Folio  first  saw  the  light. 

We  find,  further,  that  Jonson  is  if  not  actually 
editing  that  work,  at  any  rate  taking  great  and 
responsible  part  in  its  publication.  Nor  can  we 
omit  to  notice  that  if  Jonson  challenges  "  com- 
parison "  of  Shakespeare's  works  with  "  all  that 
insolent  Greece,  or  haughtie  Rome  sent  forth,  or 
since  did  from  their  ashes  come,"  he  writes  of 
Bacon  in  exactly  the  same  terms,  viz.  :  that  he 
has  *'  performed  that  in  our  tongue  which  may  be 
compared  or  preferred  either  to  insolent  Greece 
or  haughty  Rome  " — truly  a  most  extraordinary 
coincidence,  however  much  the  "  Stratfordians  " 
may  endeavour  to  make  light  of  it. 

Now  that  Bacon,  whether  or  not  he  wrote  any 

1  Ibid.,  p.  354. 

^  It  has  been  further  said  that  Jonson  was  for  a  considerable 
time  a  resident  member  of  Bacon's  household,  but  I  do  not  know 
whether  there  is  sufficient  evidence  in  support  of  this  statement. 


44         JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

of  the  plays,  was  concerned  in  their  collection  and 
publication  in  1623,  although  he  himself  was,  as 
usual,  working  **  behind  the  scenes,"  appears  to 
me  eminently  probable,  and  it  is,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,  very  possible  that  if  we  only  knew  the  real 
circumstances  in  which  that  precious  volume  was 
given  to  the  world  a  flood  of  light  might  be  thrown 
on  the  Jonsonian  utterances. 

A  powerful  writer,  and  highly  distinguished 
literary  man,  thus  writes  concerning  the  "  Shake- 
speare Problem  "  ;  "I  am  *  a  sort  of  '  haunted 
by  the  conviction  that  the  divine  William  is  the 
biggest  and  most  successful  fraud  ever  practised 
on  a  patient  world.  The  more  I  turn  him  round 
and  round  the  more  he  so  affects  me.  But  that 
is  all — I  am  not  pretending  to  treat  the  question 
or  to  carry  it  any  further.  It  bristles  with  diffi- 
culties and  I  can  only  express  my  general  sense 
by  saying  that  I  find  it  almost  as  impossible  to 
conceive  that  Bacon  wrote  the  plays  as  to  conceive 
that  the  man  from  Stratford,  as  we  know  the  man 
from  Stratford,  did."  So  wrote  Henry  James  to 
Miss  Violet  Hunt  in  August,  1903.  {Letters^ 
Macmillan,  1920,  Vol.  I.,  p.  432).  Henry  James, 
therefore,  found  it  almost  impossible  to  conceive 
that  Bacon  wrote  the  plays,  but  quite  impossible 
to  conceive  that  ''  the  man  from  Stratford  "  wrote 
them.  But  this  was  written  nearly  twenty  years 
ago,  and  much  critical  water  has  flowed  beneath 
the  Stratford  bridge  since  that  date,  and  it  is  but 
truth  to  say  that  all  recent  criticism  and  investi- 
gation have  enormously  strengthened  the  "  anti- 
Stratfordian  "  case.  The  belief  that  the  plays 
and  poems  of  Shakespeare  were  written  by  ''  the 
man  from  Stratford  "  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
many  delusions  which  have  afflicted  "  a  patient 
world." 


NOTE  B.  (see  p.  24.) 

In  speaking  of  William  Shakspere  as  "  actor-manager  *' 
I  have  followed  the  *'  orthodox  "  hypothesis,  but  there 
appears  to  be  very  little  evidence  to  show  that  he  really 
occupied  that  position  ;  in  fact  there  seems  to  be  no 
little  doubt  with  regard  to  his  position  on  the  stage 
generally.  In  the  spring  of  1597  he  purchased  New 
Place  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  and,  says  Halliv/ell- 
Phillipps,  "  there  is  no  doubt  that  New  Place  was  hence- 
forward to  be  accepted  as  his  established  residence.''  Early 
in  the  following  year,  on  February  4th,  1598,  corn  being 
then  at  an  unprecedented  and  almost  famine  price  at 
Stratford-on-Avon,  he  is  returned  as  the  holder  of  ten 
quarters  in  the  Chapel  Street  Ward,  that  in  which  the 
newly  acquired  property  was  situated,  and  in  none  of 
the  indentures  is  he  described  as  a  Londoner,  but  always 
as  "  William  Shakespeare  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  in  the 
County  of  Warwick,  gentleman."  (H.P.  Vol.  I.,  p.  122, 
6th  Edn.)  There  is  evidence,  as  HalHw^ell-Phillipps 
also  tells  us,  that  at  this  time  he  was  taking  great  interest 
in  the  maintenance  and  improvement  of  his  grounds, 
orchards,  etc.  "  Thenceforward  his  land,  property  and 
tithes  purchases,  along  with  the  fact  that  in  1604  he 
takes  legal  action  to  enforce  payment  of  a  debt  for  malt 
which  he  had  been  supplying  for  some  months  past, 
are  circumstances  much  more  suggestive  of  permanent 
residence  in  Stratford,  with  an  occasional  visit  may  be 
to  London,  than  of  permanent  residence  in  London, 
with  occasional  trips  to  Stratford.  .  .  .  From  the 
time  when  he  was  described  as  William  Shakspere  of 
Stratford-upon-Avon  (1597)  there  is  no  proof  that  he 
was  anywhere  domiciled  in  London,  whilst  the  proofs 
of  his  domiciliation  in  Stratford  from  this  time  forward 
are  irrefutable  and  continuous.  Clearly  our  conceptions 
of  his  residency  in  London  are  in  need  of  complete 
revision."^ 

**  Charles  and  Mary  Cowden  Clarke,"  adds  Mr. 
Looney,  "  in  the  Life  of  Shakspere,  published  along  with 
their  edition  of  his  plays,  date  his  retirement  to  Stratford 

^^^  Shakespeare^^  Identified,  bv  J.  Thomas  Looney  (Cecil 
Palmer,  1920)  p.  56. 


46         JONSON    AND    SHAKESPEARE 

in  the  year  1604  precisely.  After  pointing  out  that  in 
1605  he  is  described  as  *  WilUam  Shakspere,  gentleman, 
of  Stratford-on-Avon,'  they  continued  :  '  Several  things 
conduced  to  make  him  resolve  upon  ceasing  to  be  an 
actor,  and  1604  has  generally  been  considered  the  date 
when  he  did  so.'  Several  other  writers,  less  Avell- 
known,  repeat  this  date  ;  and  works  of  reference, 
written  for  the  most  part  some  years  ago,  place  his 
retirement  in  the  same  year.  '  There  is  no  doubt  he 
never  meant  to  return  to  London,  except  for  business 
visits,  after  1604  '  {National  Encyclopedia)''  {Ibid., 
p.  424.) 

We  are  told  that  Shakspere  lodged  at  one  time  in 
Bishopgate,  and,  later  on,  in  Southwark,  *'  because  he 
was  a  defaultant  taxpayer  (for  two  amounts  of  5s.  and 
13s.  4d.  respectively)  for  whom  the  authorities  were 
searching  in  1598,  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  he  had  moved, 
some  years  before,  from  Bishopsgate  to  Southwark. 
Evidently,  then,  he  was  not  at  that  time  living  in  the 
public  eye  and  mixing  freely  in  dramatic  and  literary 
circles."  {Ibid.,  p.  58).  According  to  Sir  Sidney  Lee, 
Shakspere  became  liable  for  an  aggregate  sum  of 
{^2  13s.  4d.  for  each  of  three  subsidies,  but  *'  the  col- 
lectors of  taxes  in  the  City  of  London  worked  sluggishly. 
For  three  years  they  put  no  pressure  on  the  [alleged] 
dramatist,  and  Shakespeare  left  Bishopsgate  without 
discharging  the  debt.  Soon  afterwards,  however,  the 
Bishopsgate  officials  traced  him  to  his  new  Southwark 
lodging."  {Life,  1915,  p.  274).  But  here  we  are  met 
by  the  assertion  of  another  eminent  Shakespearean 
authority,  viz.  :  Professor  C.  W.  Wallace,  of  the  "  New- 
Shakespeare  Discoveries,"  who  tells  us  "  there  is  ample 
evidence  of  a  negative  sort,  that  Shakespeare  never  had 
residence  in  Southwark  !  "  {Harper's  Magazine, 
March,  1910,  p.  505).  *'  Who  shall  decide  when 
doctors  disagree  }  "  This  conflict  of  opinion  but 
further  illustrates  the  fact  of  the  mystery  which  sur- 
rounds the  question  of  Shakspere's  residences  while  in 
London. 

And  now  we  are  confronted  with  the  dates  of  the 
Shakespearean  drama.     "  It  was  not  till  the  year  1597," 


JONSON    AND    SHAKESPEARE         47 

says  Halliwell-Phillipps,  "  that  Shakespeare's  public 
reputation  as  a  dramatist  was  sufficiently  established 
for  the  booksellers  to  be  anxious  to  secure  the  copyright 
of  his  plays."  (Vol.  I.,  p.  134).  In  1598  his  name 
appears  for  the  first  time  on  the  title  page  of  a  play,  viz.  : 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  where  the  author's  name  is  given — 
for  that  one  occasion  only— as  "  W.  Shakespere,"  and 
subsequently  in  the  same  year,  on  the  title  pages  of 
Richard  II.  and  Richard  III.,  the  author  appears  as 
*'  William  Shake-speare."  '*  We  are  consequently 
faced,"  writes  Mr.  J.  T.  Looney,  **  with  this  peculiar 
situation  that  what  has  been  regarded  as  the  period  of 
his  highest  fame  in  London  began  at  the  same  time  as 
his  formal  retirement  to  Stratford  ;  and  whilst  there  is 
undoubted  mystery  connected  with  his  place  or  places 
of  abode  in  London,  there  is  none  connected  with  his 
residence  in  Stratford.  A  curious  fact  in  this  con- 
nection is  that  the  only  letter  that  is  known  to  have  been 
addressed  to  him  in  the  whole  course  of  his  life  was  from 
a  native  of  Stratford  addressed  to  him  in  London, 
which  appears  amongst  the  records  of  the  Stratford 
Corporation,  and  which  '  was  no  doubt  forwarded  by 
hand  [to  Shakspere  whilst  in  London]  otherwise  the 
locality  of  residence  would  have  been  added  '  (Halliwell- 
Phillipps).  Evidently  his  fellow  townsmen  who  wished 
to  communicate  with  him  in  London  were  unaware  of 
his  residence  there  ;  and  the  fact  that  this  letter  was 
discovered  amongst  the  archives  of  the  Stratford  Cor- 
poration suggests  that  it  had  never  reached  the 
addressee  "  (p.  59).  "  In  1597  the  publication  of  the 
plays  begins  in  real  earnest.  In  1598  they  begin  to 
appear  with  '  Shakespeare's  '  name  attached.  From 
then  till  1604  was  the  period  of  full  flood  of  publication 
during  William  Shakspere's  life  time  :  and  this  great 
period  of  *  Shakespearean  '  publication  (1597-1604) 
corresponds  exactly  with  William  Shakspere's  busiest 
period  in  Stratford.  In  1597  he  began  the  business 
connected  with  the  purchase  of  New  Place.  Compli- 
cations ensued,  and  the  purchase  was  not  completed 
till  1602.  *  In  1598  he  procured  stone  for  the  repair  of 
the  house,  and  before  1602  had  olanted  a  fruit  orchard.' 


48        JONSON    AND    SHAKESPEARE 

(S.L.)  In  1597  his  father  and  mother  *  doubtless  under 
their  son's  guidance  '  began  a  law-suit  for  the  recovery 
of  the  mortgaged  estate  of  Asbies  in  Wilmcote,  which 

*  dragged  on  for  some  years.'  (S.L.)  '  Between  1597 
and  1599  (he  was)  rebuilding  the  house,  stocking  the 
barns  with  grain,  and  conducting  various  legal  pro- 
ceedings.' (S.L.)  In  1601  his  father  died  and  he  took 
over  his  father's  property.  On  May  1,  1602,  he  pur- 
chased 107  acres  of  arable  land.     In  Septem.ber,  1602, 

*  one  Walter  Gatley  transferred  to  the  poet  a  cottage  and 
garden  which  were  situated  at  Chapel  Lane  opposite 
the  lower  grounds  of  New  Place.'  '  As  early  as  1598 
Abraham  Sturley  had  suggested  that  Shakespeare 
[William  Shakspere]  should  purchase  the  tithes  of 
Stratford.'  In  1605  he  completed  the  purchase  of  *  an 
unexpired  term  of  these  tithes.'  *  In  July,  1604,  in 
the  local  court  at  Stratford  he  sued  Philip  Rogers,  whom 
he  had  supplied  since  the  preceding  March  with  malt 
to  the  value  of  £1  19s.  lOd.,  and  on  June  25  lent  2s.  in 
cash.'  In  a  personal  record  from  which  so  much  is 
missing  we  may  justly  assume  that  what  we  know  of  his 
dealings  in  Stratford  forms  only  a  small  part  of  his 
activities  there.  Consequently,  to  the  contention  that 
this  man  was  the  author  and  directing  genius  of  the 
magnificent  stream  of  dramatic  literature  which  in  those 
very  years  was  bursting  upon  London,  the  business 
record  we  have  just  presented  would  in  almost  any 
court  in  the  land  be  deemed  to  have  proved  an  alibi. 
The  general  character  of  these  business  transactions, 
even  to  such  touches  as  lending  the  trifling  sum  of  2s. 
to  a  person  to  whom  he  was  selling  malt,  is  all  suggestive 
of  his  own  continuous  day  to  day  contact  with  the  details 
of  his  Stratford  business  affairs."  So  writes  Mr. 
Looney,  with  more  to  the  same  effect,  and,  in  connexion 
with  his  argument,  we  must  remember  that  a  journey 
from  London  to  Stratford  and  back  was  a  very  difterent 
thing  in  Shakspere's  time  than  what  it  is  now,  and, 
indeed,  from  what  it  was  some  hundred  years  later  than 
Shakspere's  time,  when  roads  and  means  of  communi- 
cation had  been  somewhat  improved. 

There  is,  however,  evidence  that  in  the  year  1604 


JONSON    AND    SHAKESPEARE         49 

Shakspere  was  lodging  with  one  Montjoy,  a  **  tire- 
maker  "  {i.e.,  wig-maker)  in  *'  Muggle  Streete  "  {i.e., 
Monkw^ell  Street)  near  Wood  Street,  Cheapside,  for  in 
the  case  of  Bellott  v.  Montjoy,  which  was  heard  in  the 
Court  of  Requests  in  1612,  there  is  a  deposition  signed, 
according  to  Professor  Wallace,  who  discovered  the 
documents  at  the  Record  Office,  *'  Willm  Shaks,"  but 
according  to  Sir  E.  Maude  Thompson,  "  Willm  Shakp,"^ 
wherein  the  witness  is  described  as  "  William  Shakes- 
peare," (not  of  London,  be  it  remarked,  but)  *'  of 
Stratford-upon-Avon  in  the  Countye  of  Warwicke, 
gentleman  "  (but  not  either  as  actor  or  dramatist  !) 
from  which,  and  other  depositions,  it  appears  that 
'*  Will  "  was,  in  fact,  lodging  at  that  time  with  the  worthy 
"  tire-maker,"  and  lent  his  good  offices  to  persuade 
Montjoy's  apprentice  Bellott  to  solicit  the  hand  of  the 
said  Montjoy's  daughter  Mary  in  holy  matrimony  ; 
whereupon  the  enthusiastic  Professor  W^allace  at  once 
jumps  to  the  conclusion  that  "  here  at  the  corner  of 
Muggell  and  Silver  Streets  Shakespeare  was  living  when 
he  wrote  some  of  his  greatest  plays — Henry  F.,  Much 
Ado,  As  You  Like  It,  Twelfth  Night,  Hamlet,  Julius 
Ccesar,  Troilus  and  Cressida,  Macbeth,  Measure  for 
Measure,  Othello  "  /  About  this  he  tells  us  there  can 
be  no  possible  doubt  W'hatever  !  But  as  this  is  the  same 
Professor  who  also  informed  us  that  Shakspere  "  honors 
his  host  by  raising  him  in  the  play  [Henry  V.]  to  the 
dignity  of  a  French  Herald  under  his  own  name  of 
Montjoy,"  in  blissful  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  *'  Mont- 
joy, King-at-Arms  "  was  the  official  name  of  a  French 
Herald,  who,  as  Holinshed  (whose  history  the  Professor 
had  apparently  either  not  read  or  forgotten)  tells  us, 
was  conspicuous  at  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Agincourt, 
and  as,  moreover,  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  for  the 
above  wild  assertion,  we  may  be  content  to  dismiss 
such  futilities  with  a  smile,  and  pass  on  to  more  serious 
considerations.^ 

1  will  here  leave  this  vexed  question  of  Shakspere's 
residence  in  London.     Much  more  might  be  said,  but 

*  See  my  Shakspere's  Handwriting  (John  Lane,  1920). 

2  See  Note  at  p.  55. 


50         JONSON    AND    SHAKESPEARE 

I  think  enough  has  already  been  said  to  give  us  pause 
when  we  are  asked  to  accept  the  statement  that  at  one 
and  the  same  period  he  was  transacting  all  this  business 
at  Stratford,  and  composing  all  these  marvellous  plays, 
and  performing  the  duties  of  "  actor-manager  "  at  a 
London  theatre.  To  us,  however,  who  entertain  no 
doubt  whatever  that  player  Shakspere  of  Stratford  was 
not  the  author  of  the  plays  and  poems  of  **  Shakespeare," 
there  appears  to  be  no  impossibility  in  the  hypothesis 
that  the  player  occupied  the  position  of  manager  of  the 
theatre  with  which  he  was  connected,  more  especially 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  to 
show  that  any  important  roles  were  at  any  time  assigned 
to  him  in  the  Shakespearean,  or  any  other  plays. 

'*  There  was  not  a  single  company  of  actors  in 
Shakespeare's  time,"  says  Halliwell-Phillipps,  **  which 
did  not  make  professional  visits  through  nearly  all  the 
English  counties,  and  in  the  hope  of  discovering  traces 
of  his  footsteps  during  his  provincial  tours  "  this  writer 
tells  us  that  he  has  personally  examined  the  records  of 
no  less  than  forty-six  important  towns  in  all  parts  of 
the  country,  **  but  in  no  single  instance,"  says  he,  "  have 
I  found  in  any  municipal  record  a  notice  of  the  poet 
himself."^  Later  investigations,  including  the  archives 
of  some  five  and  twenty  additional  cities,  have  proved 
equally  fruitless,  yet,  writes  Sir  Sidney  Lee,  indulging 
once  more  in  his  favourite  adverb,  "  Shakespeare  may 
be  credited  with  faithfully  fulfilling  all  his  professional 
functions,  and  some  of  the  references  to  travel  in  his 
sonnets  were  doubtless  reminiscences  of  early  acting 
tours  "  !  The  records  of  Edinburgh  have  been  searched 
but  again  with  negative  results.  There  is  no  evidence 
whatever  that  Shakspere  was  ever  north  of  the  Tweed. 
With  regard  to  performances  in  London,  the  accounts 
of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber,  showing  payments 
made  for  performances  of  The  Burbage  Company  for 
the  years  1597-1616  (except  for  the  year  1602  the  record 
of  which  is  missing)  have  been  scrutinized.  Here  we 
find  mention  of  Heminge,  Burbage,  Cowley,  Bryan, 
Pope  and  Augustine  Phillipps,  but  not  once  does  the 

i  Outlines,  Second  Edition  (1882)  pp.  xiv.,  xv. 


JONSON   AND    SHAKESPEARE        51 

name  of  William  Shakspere  occur  in  all  these  accounts. 
As  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  books,  which,  as  Mrs. 
Slopes  writes,  '*  supply  much  information  concerning 
plays  and  players,"  the  documents,  as  she  adds, 
**  unfortunately  are  missing  for  the  most  important  years 
of  Shakespearean  history."  **  In  the  light  of  all  the 
other  mysterious  silences  regarding  William  Shakspere," 
says  Mr.  Looney,  '*  and  the  total  disappearance  of  the 
*  Shakespeare  *  manuscripts,  so  carefully  guarded  during 
the  years  preceding  the  publication  of  the  First  Folio 
[viz.  :  the  seven  years  which  elapsed  between  Shak- 
spere's  death  and  that  publication],  the  disappearance 
of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  books,  recording  the  trans- 
actions of  his  department  for  the  greatest  period  in  its 
history,  hardly  looks  like  pure  accident."  Be  this  as 
it  may,  the  loss  is  certainly  very  remarkable  and  most 
unfortunate.  An  entry  has,  however,  been  discovered 
in  the  accounts  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber  to  the 
following  effect  ; — "  To  William  Kempe,  WiUiam 
Shakespeare,  and  Richarde  Burbage,  servaunts  to  the 
Lord  Chamberleyne,  upon  the  Councelles  warrant 
dated  at  Whitehall  XV.  to  Marcij,  1594,  for  twoeseverall 
comedies  or  enterludes  shewed  by  them  before  her 
Majestie  in  Christmas  tyme  laste  paste,  viz.  :  upon  St. 
Stephen's  dave  and  Innocentes  dave  ...  in  all 
XX.  li."  (H.P.  Vol.  L,  p.  109).  A  foolish  attempt  has 
been  made  to  make  "  Stratfordian  "  capital  out  of  this, 
because  the  entry  in  question  is  said  to  have  been  pre- 
pared by  the  Countess  of  Southam.pton,  to  v/hose  son 
"  Shakespeare  "  had  dedicated  his  two  poems.  As  a 
fact,  however,  the  entry  referred  to  occurs  in  a  roll  of 
the  Pipe  Office  "  declared  accounts,"  which  contains 
the  accounts  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber  from 
September,  1579,  to  July,  1596.  These  accounts  were 
engrossed  year  by  year  by  one  of  the  Clerks  in  the  Pipe 
Office,  and  signed  by  the  Accountant  in  each  year,  or 
period  of  years.  Now  in  1594  Sir  Thomas  Heneage 
was  Treasurer  of  the  Queen's  Chamber,  and  in  May  of 
that  year  he  married  Mary,  widow  of  Henry  Wriothesley, 
Earl  of  Southampton,  but  he  died  in  October  of  the 
following  year,  and  it  seems  that  no  **  declared  accounts  " 


52         JONSON   AND  SHAKESPEARE 

had  at  that  date  been  rendered  since  September,  1592. 
The  Queen,  therefore,  issued  her  warrant  to  the  Countess 
as  widow  and  executrix  of  the  late  Treasurer,  com- 
manding her  to  render  the  account,  which  she  duly  did 
from  September  29th,  1592,  to  November  30th,  1595. 
The  entry  in  question  therefore  had  no  doubt,  been 
prepared  by  one  of  the  clerks  in  the  office  of  the  Trea- 
surer of  the  Chamber,  and  was  thus  sent  in  to  the  Pipe 
Office  by  the  Countess,  according  to  the  Queen's 
command.  She  was  thus  only  formally  connected  with 
the  account,  and  further  than  this  there  appears  to  have 
been  no  connexion  whatever  between  her  and  Shakspere 
of  Stratford.  In  all  probability  she  never  even  saw 
the  entry  in  question.^  All  that  appears,  therefore,  from 
this  entry,  is  that  *'  William  Shakespeare,"  with  Kempe 
and  Burbage,  about  March,  1594,  received  payment  of 
fJlO  in  all  for  two  comedies  or  interludes  *'  showed  " 
by  them  "  at  the  preceding  Christmas,  though  what 
these  comedies  or  interludes  were,  and  what  part  in 
them  was  assigned  to  *'  William  Shakespeare  "  we  are 
not  informed.  He  might  have  acted  as  prompter  or 
stage-manager  for  all  we  know.  **  And  this,"  writes 
Mr.  Looney,  **  although  occurring  three  years  before  the 
opening  of  the  period  of  his  [i.e.,  *  Shakespeare's  '] 
fame,  is  the  only  thing  that  can  be  called  an  official 
record  of  active  participation  in  the  performances  of 
the  Lord  Chamberlain's  Company,  afterwards  called 
the  King's  Players,  and  erroneously  spoken  of  as 
Shakespeare's  Company  :  the  company  of  which  he 
is  supposed  to  have  been  one  of  the  leading  lights." 

Jonson  inserts  the  name  of  Shakespeare  in  the  castes 
of  his  plays.  Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  and  Sejanus,  but 
no  mention  is  made  of  the  parts  played  by  him.  **  We 
know,"  says  Mr.  Looney,  **  neither  what  parts  he  played 
nor  how^  he  played  them  ;  but  the  one  thing  we  do  know 
is  that  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  great  *  Shakes- 
peare '  plays.  There  is  not  a  single  record  during  the 
whole  of  his  life  of  his  ever  appearing  in  a  play  of 
'  Shakespeare's.*  .  .  .  It  is  worth  while  noticing  that 
although  Jonson  gives  a  foremost  place  to  the  name  of 

^  See  my  Vindicators  of  Shakespeare,  p.  28. 


JONSON   AND   SHAKESPEARE         53 

*  Shakespeare  '  in  these  Hsts  [viz.  :  of  his  plays  above- 
mentioned]  when  Jonson's  '  Every  Man  out  of  his 
Humour  '  was  played  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
Company,  the  whole  of  the  company,  with  one  notable 
exception,  had  parts  assigned  to  them.  That  one 
exception  was  Shakspere,  who  does  not  appear  at  all 
in  the  cast."^ 

All  that  Sir  Sidney  Lee  can  say,  after  mentioning  a 
number  of  plays  which  Shakspere  and  his  colleagues 
are  said  to  have  produced  before  the  sovereign  in 
Shakspere's  life-time,  is  ''  It  may  be  presumed  that  in 
all  these  dramas  some  role  was  allotted  to  him  1  "  In 
the  list  of  actors  prefixed  to  the  Folio  of  1623,  in  the 
preparation  and  publication  of  which  Jonson  took  such 
a  large  part,  the  name  of  "  William  Shakespeare  " 
stands  first,  as  in  the  circumstances,  we  should  expect 
that  it  w'ould.  But  what  parts  did  he  play  ?  Rowe 
in  his  "  Life  of  William  Shakspear,"  published  some 
ninety-three  years  after  Shakspere's  death,  says,  "though 
I  have  inquired  I  could  never  meet  with  any  further 
account  of  him  this  way  [viz.  :  as  an  actor]  than  that 
the  top  of  his  Performance  was  the  Ghost  in  his  own 
Hamlet  "  .' 

All  w'e  can  say,  then,  is  that  Shakspere  was  one  of 
**  those  deserving  men,"  whom  the  Burbages,  in  their 
petition  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  in  1635,  say  they 
joined  to  themselves  as  "  partners  in  the  profits  "  of 
the  Globe  ;  those  **  men  players  "  w^hom  they  placed 
at  the  Black  Friars.  (Ante,  p.  34.)  Whether  or  not 
he  acted  as  '*  Manager  "  of  either  theatre  we  really 
do  not  know.  W^e  only  know  that  his  name  in  its 
literary  form  of  "  Shakespeare,"  or  "  Shake-Speare  " 
was  lent  or  appropriated  to  cover  the  authorship  of  a 
great  number  of  plays  which  were  published  under  that 
name.  It  seems  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  he 
acted  as  a  "  broker  of  plays  " — as  I  have  already  sug- 
gested— on  behalf  of  the  theatres  with  which  he  was 
connected.  It  is  curious  that  we  find  him  in  1613, 
but  three   years   before   his   death,   after   all   the   great 

^  See  Shakespeare  Identified,  pp.  73-89.  The  reference  is  to 
the  Folio  Edition  of  Jonson's  plays  published  by  him  in  1616, 
the  year  of  Shakspere's  death. 


54         JONSON  AND   SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespearean  works  had  been  written,  and  when,  if 
he  were  in  truth  '*  the  great  dramatist  '*  he  must  have 
been  at  the  zenith  of  his  fame,  employed  with  Dick 
Burbage  at  Belvoir  to  work  at  the  Earl  of  Rutland's 
new  **  device,"  or  *'  impreso,"  for  which  each  of  them 
received  the  sum  of  44s.  ! 

Mr.  Looney  has  summarized  the  results  of  his  exam- 
ination of  the  middle  or  London  period  of  William 
Shakspere's  career,  which,  omitting  three  or  four  of 
them,   are   as   follows  : — 

He  was  purely  passive  in  respect  to  all  the  publications 
which  took  place  under  his  name. 

There  is  the  greatest  uncertainty  respecting  the 
duration  of  his  sojourn  in  London  and  the  strongest 
probability  that  he  was  actually  resident  at  Stratford 
whilst  the  plays  were  being  published.  [For  *'  pub- 
lished "  we  might,  perhaps,  substitute  *'  performed."] 

Nothing  is  known  of  his  doings  in  London,  and  there 
is  much  mystery  concerning  his  place  of  residence  there. 

Only  after  1598,  the  date  when  plays  were  first 
printed  with  "  Shakespeare's  "  name,  are  there  any 
contemporary  references  to  him  as  a  dramatist. 

The  public  knew  *'  Shakespeare  "  in  print,  but  knew 
nothing  of  the  personality  of  William  Shakspere. 

He  has  left  no  letter  or  trace  of  personal  intercourse 
with  any  London  contemporary  or  public  man.  The 
only  letter  known  to  have  been  sent  to  him  was  con- 
cerned solely  with  the  borrowing  of  money. 

Although  the  company  with  which  his  name  is  asso- 
ciated toured  frequently  and  widely  in  the  provinces, 
and  much  has  been  recorded  of  their  doings,  no  muni- 
cipal archive,  so  far  as  is  known,  contains  a  single  refer- 
ence to  him. 

There  is  no  contemporary  record  of  his  ever  appearing 
in  a  "  Shakespeare  "  play.  The  only  plays  with  which 
as  an  actor  his  name  was  associated  during  his  life-time 
are  two  of  Ben  Jonson's  plays. 

The  accounts  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber  show 
only  one  irregular  reference  to  him,  three  years  before 
the  period  of  his  [i.e.,  of  **  Shakespeare's  "]  greatest 
fame,  and  none  at  all  during  or  after  that  period. 


JONSON   AND    SHAKESPEARE         55 

The  Lord  Chamberlain's  Books,  which  would  have 
[i.e.^  which  ought  to  have]  furnished  the  fullest  records 
of  his  doings  during  these  years,  are,  like  the  "  Shake- 
speare "  manuscripts,  missing. 

His  name  is  missing  from  the  following  records  of 
the  Lord  Chamberlain's  company  in  which  other 
actor's  names  appear. 

(1)  The  cast  of  Jonson's  '*  Every  Man  out  of  his 
Humour,"  in  which  all  the  other  members  of  the 
Company  appear. 

(2)  The  record  of  proceedings  respecting  the  Essex 
Rebellion  and  the  Company,  [i.e.,  with  regard  to  the 
performance  of  Richard  II.] 

(3)  The  Company's  attendance  on  the  Spanish 
Ambassador  in  1604.  [See  mv  Is  there  a  Shakespeare 
Problem?     p.  483.] 

(4)  The  Company's  litigation  in  1612.  [See  Mrs. 
Stope's  *'  Burbage  and  the  Shakespeare  Stage."  pp. 
106-107.] 

(5)  The  Company's  participation  in  the  installation 
of  the  Prince  of  Wales. 

(6)  References  to  the  burning  of  the  Globe  Theatre. 
Further,  even  rumour  and  tradition  assign  him  only 

an  insignificant  role  as  an  actor. 

Note  to  p.  49. — Dr.  Wallace  says  that  "  upon  his  own  testimony 
Shakespeare  lived  at  Mountjoy's  during  all  the  time  of  Bellott's 
apprenticeship,  that  is  six  years  from  1598  to  1604  "  (Harper's 
Magazine,  March,  1910,  p.  505)  ;  but  if  Shakespeare's  answer  to 
Interrogatories  in  the  case  of  Bellott  v.  Mountjoy  be  examined  it 
will  be  found  that  he  says  nothing  of  the  kind.  A  recent  writer 
in  America,  however,  has  gone  one  better,  and  says  that  Shake- 
speare lodged  with  the  tire-maker  from  1598  to  1612,  of  which, 
so  far  as  I  know,  there  is  not  a  scintilla  of  evidence.  The  supposed 
fact,  however,  is  cited  in  support  of  the  hypothesis  that  Bacon 
befriended  Shakspere,  who  thus  came  under  Bacon's  influence, 
because  Bacon  had  a  house  in  Noble  Street,  close  to  the  junction 
of  "  Muggle  Str."  and  "  Sylver  St."  where  Mountjoy  lived. — 
Law  Sports  at  Gray's  Inn,  by  Basil  Brown,  New  York,  1921. 


NOTE    C.    (Jonson's    Discoveries.) 
(Referred  to  at  p.  31.) 

Ben  Jonson's  Timber  or  Discoveries  was  published 
in  1641,  and,  therefore,  some  six  years  after  Jonson's 
death.  The  work  apparently  consists  of  notes  written 
from  time  to  time  during  the  later  years  of  his  life. 
Into  whose  hands  the  manuscript  notes  fell  and  who 
edited  them,  and  what  became  of  them,  and  whether 
we  now  have  them  as  Jonson  wrote  them,  is,  I  appre- 
hend, unknown.  On  the  title-page  we  read,  "  Timber 
or  Discoveries,  Made  upon  Men  and  Matter  :  As  They 
have  flow'd  out  of  his  daily  Readings  ;  or  had  their 
refluxe  to  his  peculiar  Notion  of  the  Times,"  with  the 
date  MDCXLi.  It  seems  clear  that  the  notes  were  written 
during  the  last  years  of  Jonson's  life.^  Sir  Israel 
GoUancz,  who  edited  the  work,  in  the  Temple  Classics 
series  (1902),  writes,  with  reference  to  the  note  De 
Shakespeare  Nostrati  (No.  lxiv.),  *'  the  impression  it 
leaves  is  that  it  must  have  preceded  that  noblest  of  all 
eulogies  on  Shakespeare  prefixed  to  the  First  Folio  of 
1623."  But  this  appears  to  be  an  erroneous  inference. 
Dr.  Ingleby  gives  the  limits  of  date  as  1630-37  {Centurie 
of  Prayse.  Second  Edition,  p.  174).  In  an  early  note 
(No.  XLV.)  Jonson  speaks  of  an  event  which  happened 
in  1630.  In  note  No.  LVi.  he  tells  us  that  his  memory 
was  good  till  he  was  past  forty,  but  had  since  much 
decayed.  If,  therefore,  we  assume,  as  seems  reasonable, 
that  he  was  upwards  of  fifty  when  he  so  wrote,  we  arrive 
at  a  date  certainly  subsequent  to  1623.  Moreover  in 
note  No.  lxxiii.'*  he  speaks  of  *'  the  late  Lord  Saint 
Alban,"  so  that  this  note  must  have  been  written 
^subsequently  to  Bacon's  death  in  1626. 

1  Of  that  opinion  also  is  Professor  Felix  Schelling.  See  his 
edition  of  the  work  (1892),  Introduction,  p.  xvii.  See  also  the 
edition  by  Maurice  Castelain  (Paris,  1906),  Introduction,  p.  xi., 
M.  Castelain  suggests  that  the  book  may  have  been  begun  after 
the  burning  of  Jonson's  library  in  1623, 

*  The  numbers  are  conveniently  prefixed  to  the  notes  by  Sir 
I.  Gollancz. 


JONSON   AND   SHAKESPEARE         57 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  note  De  Shakespeare 
Nostrati  must  be  taken  as  representing  Jonson's  opinion 
of  "  the  man  "  Shakspere  some  seven  or  more  years 
after  the  pubUcation  of  "  that  noblest  of  all  eulogies."* 
But  some  four  years  before  the  appearance  of  the  Folio 
of  1623,  viz.  :  in  January,  1619,  Jonson  was  staying 
with  Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  and  Drummond 
made  notes  of  his  conversation,  and,  under  the  title, 
or  heading,  "  His  Acquaintance  and  Behaviour  with 
poets  living  with  him,"  we  have  recorded  remarks  made 
by  Ben  concerning  Daniel,  Drayton,  Beaumont,  Sir 
John  Roe,  Marston,  Markham,  Day,  Middleton, 
Chapman,  Fletcher,  and  others.  What  do  we  find 
concerning  Shakspere  ?  *'  That  Shakspere  wanted 
arte.  .  .  .  Shakspeer  in  a  play,  brought  in  a  number 
of  men  saying  they  had  suffered  shipwrack  in  Bohemia, 
where  there  is  no  sea  neer  by  some  100  miles."  Here, 
then,  we  have  Jonson  unbosoming  himself  in  private 
conversation  with  his  host  and  friend,  and  this,  appar- 
ently, is  all  he  has  to  say  about  the  great  bard  who, 
only  four  years  afterwards,  he  was  to  laud  to  the  skies 
as  the  "  Soul  of  the  age,  the  applause,  delight,  the 
wonder  of  our  stage."  We  would  have  expected  to 
find  whole  pages  of  eulogy,  in  Drummond's  notes,  of 
the  poet  who  **  was  not  of  an  age  but  for  all  time," 
instead  of  which  we  have  only  these  two  carping  little 
bits  of  criticism  :  "  That  Shakspeer  wanted  {i.e.y 
lacked)  arte  " — a  curious  remark  to  have  proceeded 
from  the  mouth  of  him  who  wrote,  in  the  Folio  lines, 
that  a  poet  must  be  "  made  as  well  as  born  "  ;  that 
Nature  must  be  supplemented  by  art  ;  and  that  in 
Shakespeare's  case  such  art  was  not  lacking,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  was  conspicuous  '*  in  his  well-turned 
and  true-filed  lines."  And  then  that  niggling  bit  of 
criticism  concerning  the  coast  of  Bohemia  in  the 
Winter's  Tale,  taken  straight  from  the  learned  Greene's 

1  "  In  the  remarks  de  Shakespeare  Nostrati  we  have,  doubtless, 
Ben's  closet-opinion  of  his  friend,  opposed  as  it  seems  to  be  to 
that  in  his  address  to  Britain,"  prefixed  to  the  Folio  of  1623. 
(Ingleby). 


58        JONSON    AND    SHAKESPEARE 

novel  of  Dorastus  and  Fawnia,  which  may  be  compared 
with  the  depreciatory  allusion  to  Julius  Ccesar  in  the 
Discoveries.  As  Professor  Herford  remarks,  "It  is 
significant  that  both  in  the  *  Conversations  '  and  the 
*  Discoveries,'  where  high  praise  is  given  to  others, 
Jonson  only  notes  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare  his  defi- 
ciency in  qualities  on  which  he  himself  set  a  very  high 
value."     (Article  on  Jonson  in  Diet  :   Nat  :   Biog  : ). 

With  regard  to  Jonson's  allusion  to  the  play  oi  Julius 
Ccesar^  some  critics  have  suggested  that  the  lines  he 
has  cited  are  merely  misquotation.  Thus  Mr  Andrew 
Lang  asks,  *'  of  whom  is  Ben  writing  ?  "  and  answers, 
**  of  the  author  of  Julius  Ccesar,  certainly,  from  which, 
his  memor}?^  failing,  he  misquotes  a  line."  {Shakespeare, 
Bacotiy  and  The  Great  Unknown,  p.  257).  But  if  Ben 
here  misquotes,  owing  to  failing  memory,  it  follows  that 
the  whole  story  is  a  myth.  The  basis  of  the  story,  if 
Jonson  is  alluding  to  the  play,  is  that  Julius  Ccesar 
originally  contained  the  words  quoted  by  him,  **  Csesar, 
thou  dost  me  wrong,"  and  Caesar's  answer  as  quoted. 
But  in  the  play  as  we  now  have  it  there  are  no  words 
such  as  **  Caesar,  thou  dost  me  wrong,"  uttered  by 
Metellus  Cimber  (Act  III.,  sc.  1.,  33),  so  that,  on  Mr. 
Lang's  hypothesis,  Ben  not  only  misquoted  two  lines, 
but  invented  the  whole  story.  GifFord,  on  the  other 
hand,  says  that  Jonson  must  have  heard  the  words  he 
has  quoted  at  the  theatre. 

Finally,  it  may  be  noted  that  although  Jonson, 
writing  in  the  late  years  of  his  life,  says  of  Shakespeare 
(or  Shakspere)  that  he  **  lov'd  the  man'^  and  honours 
his  memory,  yet  the  often-quoted  Nicholas  Rowe 
(Shakespeare's  first  biographer — so-called — )  tells  us 
that  "  he  was  not  very  cordial  in  his  friendship,"  nor 
have  we,  in  fact,  any  evidence  whatever  that  he  and 
William  Shakspere  of  Stratford  were  close  friends. 
Shakspere's  friends  were  men  such  as  his  fellow- 
players,  Heminge,  Burbage,  and  Condell,  to  whom  he 
left  by  his  Will  26s.  8d.  apiece  to  buy  them  rings. 
He  makes  no  mention  whatever  of  Ben  Jonson,  who, 
(if,  indeed,   he   was  really  the  author  of  the   note   de 


JONSON   AND   SHAKESPEARE         59 

Shakespeare  Nostrati,  in  the  posthumously  pubHshed 
DiscoveriesY  would  have  us  believe  that  he  so  "  lov'd 
the  man,"  while  as  to  the  tradition  chronicled  by  John 
Ward  upwards  of  fifty  years  after  Shakspere's  death 
(he  became  Vicar  of  Stratford  in  1662)  that  Shakspere, 
Drayton,  and  Ben  Jonson  had  "  a  merie  meeting, 
and  it  seems  drank  too  hard,  for  Shakespear  died  of  a 
feavour  there  contracted,"  it  is  so  obviously  a  myth 
that  it  is  unworthy  of  serious  consideration.  There 
is  no  shred  of  evidence  that  Shakspere  was  on  intimate 
terms  of  friendship  with  either  Jonson  or  Drayton,  and 
Ben's  remarks  both  in  the  "  Discoveries,"  and  in  his 
conversation  with  Drummond,  do  but  strengthen  the 
hypothesis  that  the  main  object  which  Ben  had  in  view* 
in  wTiting  his  poetical  eulogy  of  "  Shake-speare  " 
prefixed  to  the  First  Folio,  was  to  provide  a  good  "  send 
oflf,"  and  to  give  "  bold  advertisement,"  for  that  volume, 
in  the  publication  of  which  his  services  had  been  enlisted, 
and  in  which  he  was  so  intimately  concerned.  More- 
over, as  already  mentioned,  he  must  have  written  well 
knowing  that  several  of  the  plays,  and  large  portions  of 
plays,  therein  ascribed  to  "  Shake-speare  "  were  not, 
in  truth  and  in  fact,  by  him,  that  is  to  say  not  by  the 
true  Shake-speare,  whoever  the  true  Shake-speare 
may  have  been. 

It  is  remarkable  that  many  passages  in  the  Discoveries 
which  have  all  the  appearance  of  being  Jonson's  original 
observations  are,  in  fact,  literal  translations  from  well- 
known  Latin  writers,  such  as  Quintilian  and  the  two 
Senecas.  This  is  well  seen  in  his  remarks  De  Shake- 
speare Nostrati.  "  His  wit  was  in  his  own  power  ; 
would  the  rule  of  it  had  been  so  too  !  Many  times 
he  fell  into  those  things  could  not  escape  laughter.  .  .  . 
But  he  redeemed  his  vices  with  his  virtues.  There 
was  ever  more  in  him  to  be  praised  than  to  be  pardoned." 
This  is  just  taken  from  the  elder  Seneca's  Controversia 
(Bk.  iv..  Preface),  '*  In  sua  potestate  habebat  ingenium, 
in    aliena    modum.  .   .   .   Saepe    incidebat    in    ea    quae 

^  M.  Castelain  thinks  that  the  Latin  marginal  titles  of  the  various 
notes  were  *'  added  by  the  editor  "  (p.  ix.). 


60  JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

derisum  effugere  non  possent.  .  .  .  redimebat 
tamen  vitia  virtutibus  et  persaepe  plus  habebat  quod 
laudares  quam  cui  ignosceres."  There  seems,  however, 
nothing  to  be  concluded  from  this  except  that  Jonson 
thought  Seneca's  observations  applicable  to  "  Shake- 
speare," and  adopted  them  as  his  own  pro  hac  vice  ; 
just  as  when  he  said  of  Bacon  that  he  had  **  performed 
that  in  our  tongue  which  may  be  compared  or  preferred 
either  to  insolent  Greece  or  haughty  Rome  " — words 
which  he  had  previously  used  with  reference  to 
"  Shakespeare,"  in  his  lines  prefixed  to  the  Folio  of 
1623 — he  was  again  quoting  from  Seneca  :  "  Deinde 
ut  possitis  aestimare  in  quantum  cotidie  ingenia  descres- 
cant  et  nescio  qua  iniquitate  naturae  eloquentia  se  retro 
tulerit  :  quidquid  Romana  facundia  habet,  quod 
insolenti  Graeciae  aut  opponat  aut  praeferat,  circa 
Ciceronem  effloruit,"  etc.  (Coniroversia,  Bk.  I,  Preface, 
cf.  the  passage  in  the  Discoveries ,  No.  lxxii.,  Scriptorum 
Catalogus,  which,  by  the  way,  makes  no  mention  of 
Shakespeare). 


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